Tag Archives: Emmitsburg

April 9, 2025 · 9:37 am

Dinosaurs in Emmitsburg

Dinosaurs began to be recognized by paleontologists as the creatures that they were in the early 1800s.  In 1895, the Provincial Annals included a note about the local community and the scientific field of paleontology: 

“These few days past the men have been removing two large slabs from Avenue side walk.  One is destined for the Johns Hopkins’s University, the other for our own cabinet.  Prof. Mitchell of the Mountain [Mount St. Mary’s University] is the one who is securing these singular geological specimens.  They have long been objects of the Sisters’ curiosity & comment as they promenade up and down the Avenue in summer evening recreation.  They bear the impression of many feet of different kinds & sizes, pre-historic creatures that lived O many & many age ago!  The Professor’s interest in our quarry from where these slabs were taken led him.  His opinion is that all this land round about ages & ages ago formed an estuary, the mountains were its shores.”

The slabs documented by Dr. James A. Mitchell were the first dinosaur prints from Maryland to be announced in a scientific publication.

In the spirit of this time period, the cabinet referred to was a “cabinet of curiosities,” sort of a predecessor to a modern-day museum exhibit.  It was housed in the Burlando Building of St. Joseph’s Academy, the school thatthe Daughters operated.  Later, it was on display, in a deep historical anachronism, in the Stone House on campus where the community had begun in 1809. 

Dr. Mitchell made sketches of the slabs.  Then the slabs went missing.

In 1990, a group of maintenance workers discovered a slab in a crate with fossilized footprints in an old barn on campus.  The search was sparked by Dr. Peter Kranz, who was tracking Mitchell’s work from 100 years before.  In 1998, the slab was put on permanent display in the Maryland Science Center.  Before it was moved from Emmitsburg to Baltimore, the Sisters and employees in Emmitsburg could see it for themselves, privately and up close. 

The Maryland Science Center performed their own analysis on the footprints, identifying them as coming from:

“several dinosaurs who walked across it during the Triassic period, 210 million years ago.  Scientists are not certain exactly which type of dinosaur made the tracks….They were small, plant-eating dinosaurs, about the size of a turkey.  They were ornithischian dinosaurs, and had hip skeletons somewhat like that of birds [This time period in the 1990s is when the theory of dinosaur to bird evolution started to receive wide acceptance].  They usually walked on two legs (‘bi-pedal’), but occasionally dropped down to walk on four legs part of the time.”

Theorized sketches of the dinosaurs created by the Maryland Science Center

With the level of excitement of such a find, it was natural to assume that the same tracks that Mitchell and the Sisters set eyes on in the 1890s had been rediscovered.  However, based on his sketches, this is not the same slab, but an entirely different set of fossilized dinosaur tracks.  It appears the slab once sent to Johns Hopkins has been lost as well.

The discovery and transfer of the fossils were widely covered in the local media, and they went on display at the Maryland Science Center in the aftermath of the first two Jurassic Park films. They remain on display now in the “Dinosaur Mysteries” exhibit.

Sister Betty Ann McNeil overseeing the shipment of the slab out of Emmitsburg
Fossilized footprints on display at Maryland Science Center (Courtesy MD Science Center)

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February 10, 2025 · 11:01 am

The Lee Family of Emmitsburg

Research on the Lee family has been greatly assisted by the work of the “Recovering Identity” project of the Catoctin Furnace Historical Society.  The Daughters of Charity Provincial Archives has assisted the project with resources where we were able, and we are grateful to them for the next steps they have taken and their extensive consultation of other sources.  Their full reports and summaries and be found here.

Beginning in the late 1870s and going through the 1890s, the “Talks with Ancient Sisters” sought to gather the stories of some of the oldest Sisters and community members, particularly those who had been around in the time of Mother Seton.  Speaking in 1884, Sister Helena Elder, a member of the Elder family, a longstanding, extensive landholding family of Emmitsburg, briefly mentioned a family named Lee:  “I don’t know whether his name was Charles or not.  A colored man and his wife.  They lived up there in Brawner’s place,” Sister Helena said.  Her interviewer added “I expect that’s the Lee [who] Bishop Bruté speaks of in one of his notes after Mother’s death when he says, ‘here looking across the fields from Charles Lee’s about one mile to the little wood.’”

Like several of the African American families of early Emmitsburg, a brief mention like this can begin to scratch the surface of life amongst the free and enslaved communities of Emmitsburg in a history that has only begun to receive attention within the last few years from local historians.   

Father Bruté does in fact first mention Charles shortly after Mother Seton’s death in 1821:

I again shed tears near Charles Lee’s looking from the hill across the meadows one mile towards that little wood to day [sic], 19th May, 1821

The property of the Lees, overlooking the Valley where the Sisters established themselves, had been owned by Charles since 1813 on a property appropriately called “Pleasant View.”  Charles is called in the Bill of Sale document “Charles Lee Blackman (formerly the property of John M. Bayard).”  Indeed, Charles had purchased his own freedom in 1804 for £100.

Deed identifying Charles Lee as “formerly the property of John M. Bayard” as he purchases his own land for the first time (courtesy Maryland State Archives)

Charles is remembered in the late 1880s by another local African American man, Augustine Briscoe.  The Lee property had apparently remained somewhat famous, as he said “There, Sister, there is where Charles used to live. They were old settlers about here. Charles Lee was grandfather to Martin Lee; he was free but his wife wasn’t.”  By 1810, Charles and his family were all living together, despite their mixed-freedom status, and, from 1807 to 1814, Charles purchased the freedom of his wife Hannah and children Isaac, Peggy, and Adeline from Elizabeth Brawner, another member of the Elder family.  Their later children would be born free and never bear the struggle or indignity of slavery.

It points to the complicated interwoven strands of freedom and slavery that the Lee and Brawner properties are described as being so close to each other.  Maps from the collection show their properties less than a block away from each other, and finance books show payments for activities to both families intermixed together.

1873 Atlas Map, Emmitsburg Dist. (portion)

References to the family in the Daughters’ archive pick up with Isaac, the first family member whose freedom Charles Lee purchased.  Isaac Lee receives his own page in one of the surviving financial ledgers, indicating a long-standing set of payments and transactions between the two.  From 1838-1839, the ledgers indicate that he was “employed by the month at $10 per month.”  Notes that indicate the nature of the work include that portions of his payment come from “the Quarry Acct.”  Further details emerge when one delves deeper into the transaction books to find that in addition to farm work, it includes “quarrying stones for a church.”  Indeed, this lines up with the construction of the chapel of the new Central House of the Province, which today is the chapel of the FEMA National Fire Academy!  

Chapel as it appears today as the National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Chapel

Martin Lee was not a direct descendent of Charles Lee, but married into the Lee family and chose to take his wife’s last name.  The Provincial Annals contain a lengthy obituary of him after his death on January 24, 1897.  He was described as a “faithful attache” of St. Joseph’s farm who had been devastated by the death of his wife Emily in later years.  It is also stated that the death of his friend Augustine Briscoe, another member of another old African American family of Emmitsburg, had been a particular shock to him.

Martin had also put his earnings into purchasing real estate.  He owned several small properties on the Mountain.  After his death, he offered the Daughters the first chance to buy the property from his family, although the community declined to do so.

Martin Lee Obituary from the Emmitsburg Chronicle, preserved alongside the community accounts

The research process is ongoing for details about the Lee family.  In the near future, it is our goal to better understand and describe the many financial ledgers and cash books to make them easier to use, and hopefully to shed more light on the historic African American families of the Emmitsburg area!

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November 11, 2024 · 9:21 am

Father Burlando

In the United States, there was never a more influential Provincial Director than Father Francis Burlando.

The position of the Provincial Director is always held by a Vincentian priest.  He is meant to invoke the spirit of the community’s founders in the Daughters within a province, play a role in the formation of the Sisters, have a vote in Council decisions, and ensure that the Daughters of Charity live the spirit of their vows of poverty.  Father Burlando was born in Genoa, Italy in 1814.  He volunteered to go to America shortly before his ordination as a priest in 1837.  He taught in Perryville, Missouri, and was pastor at St. Vincent’s Parish in St. Louis, where important gatherings and Masses are still celebrated for the Daughters today.

Father Burlando, circa 1870
American Vincentians, 1870, Father Burlando at right

In 1849, he accompanied Father Mariano Maller to Emmitsburg.  Father Maller was set to take his position in 1850 as the first Provincial Director for the Daughters of Charity in the United States, after Mother Seton’s community formally merged with Daughters in 1850.  Father Burlando was to be the Sisters’ confessor but returned to St. Louis for health reasons.  In 1853, Father Maller was appointed as Director for the Daughters’ Province in Brazil, and Father Burlando was appointed as the Provincial Director in the United States.

Father Burlando had the responsibility of completing the transition of the Sisters of Charity into Daughters of Charity.  Although the blue and white habit of the Daughters had begun to trickle into the United States, Father Burlando oversaw the completion of the change across the entire country through 1854. When the Civil War passed through Emmitsburg and the Sisters’ grounds became host to marching armies, Father Burlando worked to keep both Sisters and students safe, using their status as religious to make sure no accidental firing occurred.  When the Battle of Gettysburg subsided on July 3, 1863, Burlando personally led the Sisters to Gettysburg to begin their nursing duties there.  After the War, he helped shape the historical record by encouraging the Sisters to write their accounts of what they experienced.  Today, these accounts are some of the greatest treasures in the Archives.

With regard to St. Joseph’s Academy, Burlando oversaw an expansion of the school and the construction of his namesake building.  Having learned of architecture and building from his father in Italy, a plumber, he co-designed what would become his namesake building, which still stands as part of the FEMA Fire Academy.

Someone only identified as “An Old Pupil” described his relationship with the students at the Academy: 

Father Burlando took the most active interest in the studies of the pupils of St. Joseph’s and in everything pertaining to their comfort and welfare, always planning how to give them increased pleasure in their recreation, and in return the pupils loved him with a sincere affection, regarding him as a most tender Father. His practical mind was always suggesting something new for their future benefit, and as he fully realized the influence of [a] woman in her home, he labored to direct the education of those under his care to that end, introducing the study of domestic economy at St. Joseph’s, that the young ladies might be trained to fulfil properly the important duties of life. For this alone he is entitled to everlasting gratitude.

Burlando Building at St. Joseph’s Academy, Emmitsburg, circa 1871

Burlando also provided guidance on business matters, with his template for establishing ministries as incorporated institutions, which helped guide the community as it established some of its most long-lasting works.  Drafted in 1870, his guidelines provided uniform structure and procedure for the next 80-plus years, ensuring the longevity and independence of the Daughters’ ministries. 

Father Burlando died suddenly in 1873 of a stroke.  Along with his importance, the suddenness of his death probably contributes to the voluminous accounts of his funeral.  Father Burlando is one of the priests, or even non-Sisters, to be buried in the Old Cemetery in Emmitsburg, in a place of honor directly around the mortuary chapel.

The Provincial Archives contains much of his personal and business correspondence, the notes that he used to compile the history of the community mergers in 1850; and his notes that were used to re-construct the Provincial Annals for the 1850s, 1860s, and early 1870s; and many of his retreats, which began in 1856.  Among the accounts of his death and funeral are poems written by Sisters and students alike:

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