St. Mary’s Church and Cemetery

St. Mary’s Church and Cemetery. Mudd Meets Booth. On November 13, 1864, here at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, Dr. Samuel A. Mudd was introduced to John Wilkes Booth, the future assassin of President Abraham Lincoln. Booth had come to Charles County to contact the Confederate underground here and recruit men to help him kidnap the president. Mudd’s wife, Sarah, later wrote: , “The first time I ever saw John Wilkes Booth was in November 1864. My husband went to Bryantown Church [St. Mary’s] and was introduced to Booth by John Thompson, an old friend from Baltimore, who asked my husband if he knew of anyone who had a good riding-horse for sale, to which, he replied, ‘My next neighbor has one.’ Booth came to our home that evening to see about buying the horse. The next morning after breakfast Booth and Dr. Mudd walked across the field to Squire George Gardener’s. Booth soon returned, came in, got his overcoat, and rode away. The horse he purchased was sent to him at Bryantown that evening.” , Booth and Mudd met several more times before the doctor set Booth’s broken leg at Mudd’s home on April 15, 1865. The Mudds are buried in the church cemetery by the parking lot, to the left of the church. Dr. Mudd was born on December 20, 1833, and died on January 10, 1883. Sarah Frances Dyer, his wife, was born on March 15, 1835, and died on December 29, 1911. The church cemetery contains the graves of several Mudd and Dyer relatives. , (Caption) The center part of St. Mary’s Church was built in 1846, then in the 1890’s it was enlarged to how we see it today. In 1866 the rectory was gutted by a fire and rebuilt. In the mid 1950’s it was torn down and replaced with the current brick rectory.