Life and Labor under Slavery: the Jesuit Plantation Project

St. Thomas's Manor

The founding story for the second plantation, St. Thomas's Manor, was similar to that of St. Inigoe's Manor. Positioned on both sides of Port Tobacco Creek, St. Thomas's included a total of around 4,400 acres of land. After 1717, St. Thomas's Manor frequently served as the home of the mission superior. In 1740, the Jesuits built a brick manor house and a small chapel. George Hunter, SJ, was the plantation's longest resident pastor, serving from 1747 to 1779. In 1798, Charles Sewall, SJ built a full church on the property. In the 19th Century, Francis Neale, SJ, served as resident pastor from 1818-1837, after a long career that included helping to found Georgetown College, building Holy Trinity Church in the District of Columbia, and many years serving as the fiscal agent of the Corporation of Roman Catholic Clergymen. When the mission achieved the status of becoming an independent province in 1833, William McSherry, SJ, took up residence at the site when he took the post of Provincial.

(Joseph Zwinge, "The Jesuit Farms in Maryland. Facts and Anecdotes," Woodstock Letters XL, no. 2 (1911): 180-99, and Edward Devitt, "History of the Maryland-New York Province, II," Woodstock Letters LX, no. 3 (1931).)

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