St-James-the-Less

In 1852 a chapel of ease was built in Owensville as part of the St James parish. 

It was located between two existing Episcopal churches: All Hallows, 6mi to the north, and St James, 5mi south.  The chapel was named St-James-the-Less.  Traveling to church on Sunday now became a lot simpler for Owensville's Episcopalians.

For ten years all went well.  Then as arguments about slavery began to heat up,  two groups of congregants within the parish found themselves marching to different drummers, literally. Owensville sons marched off to fight for the Confederacy. The St James mother church was not pleased. 

What happened next is a matter of dispute.

Christ Church c1900 (Burwell photo)
  

The official record states that St-James-the-Less was "granted permission in 1862 to set up an independent parish named Christ Church".

In fact, descendants of that time claim the Chapel was “kicked out” of the parish for its pro-slavery views.

Whichever, a new larger sanctuary was built in Owensville in 1867.  The money came  from a bereaved mother, in memory of her children, using an inheritance from Mississippi.

Eleanor Hall McCaleb Burwell, born in the Owensville-West River district, had married James McCaleb of Mississippi in 1839.  He and all three of their children died young, the last one, Annie, in a sledding accident on Owensville Rd at the bottom of Catholic Church Hill in 1867.  That same year Eleanor placed the cornerstone for a new Christ Church.  She chose a design from the sketchbook of Richard Upjohn. 

Thanks to the fame of Upjohn the architect, 
Christ Church is today recognized as a 
national historic site. 

Eleanor is buried with her children in the 
church yard.  Her stone reads: 

“I have finished the work thou hast sent me to do.”

Christ Church c1930 (Burwell photo)

 Eleanor Hall McCaleb Burwell's stone

World War I Comes to Owensville

In the summer of 1917 a company of US Army soldiers was marching from Fort Foote in DC, to the rifle range at Glen Burnie MD.

They broke ranks on Solomon's Island Rd, at the corner of Owensville Rd, and prepared to pitch tents in Mrs Cheston’s pasture.

They were headed for the battlefields of France.

Sam Chew, Owensville’s storekeeper, described the scene for The Baltimore Sun:

“Automobiles, carriages, wagons, and buggies, loaded with laughing girls bearing fruit, cake, confectionary, & food of every description, deposited their gifts beneath the shade of the elms and left to return again and again with the offerings of the neighborhood.

Officers were importuned to allow the boys to be entertained in the adjacent homes.”  

In one home over the hill from the camp lived a young woman, Lillian Shepherd, a school teacher.  Among the soldier boys who went to the Shepherd home that evening was Hal Nye from Montana.  A romance was kindled.  Hal and Lillian agreed to exchange letters while he was "over there".

“At dawn the next morning the sound of the bugle wafted over the West River country, and residents near the camp came down to the highway to watch the soldiers march away toward Annapolis.  After a few weeks, army transports carried the company across the Atlantic.”

Lillian and Hal Nye c1930

Seven years later Hal Nye came back to Lillian.             

On Dec 4 1924 they were married in Owensville’s Christ Church.  

The following week they boarded a train west to take up married life on Hal’s ranch.

Sam Chew wrote afterwards: “Are there still some who say that romance is dead?”

1917 Gazette news article

 

Nye gravestones at Christ Church, Owensville Md