With Great Emotion of Soul

With Great Emotion of Soul. . , The low strip of land across the water in front of you is St. Clement's Island. There, in March of 1634, English settlers first landed on what today is Maryland., The Catholics among the mostly Protestant settlers were seeking a new life that would provide religious tolerance from a strict Protestant England. All were seeking new social and economic opportunities., Three weeks after landing, Father Andrew White performed the first Catholic Mass in the English colonies. He described erecting a "great cross which we have hewn from a tree" and humbly chanting prayers "with great emotion of soul." They had openly celebrated their faith, which they could not have done in England., Approximately 140 settlers arrived aboard two ships, the Ark and the much smaller Dove. The settlers named the island after St. Clement, the Catholic patron saint of sailors and seas, possibly in gratitude for their safety after a harrowing three-month Atlantic crossing. But they stayed here just briefly. The 400-acre island was too small for their settlement; they moved downriver to the site that would become St. Mary's City and Maryland's first capital., [Captions:] , Settlers erect a cross on St. Clement's Island in March of 1634., Historic watercolor of the Dove (left) and the Ark at St. Clement's Island. Leaders of the Piscataway Nation described the Ark as a canoe as big as an island.