Christ Church and the Religious Landscape of Colonial Maryland

The origins of Christ Episcopal Church in Columbia, Maryland—originally known as the Elk Ridge Church—are deeply entwined with the political, religious, and geographic transformations of colonial Maryland. This article investigates the complex development of Queen Caroline Parish, the ecclesiastical landscape that preceded it, and the socio-political context that shaped its creation in 1728.

The Establishment of the Anglican Church in Maryland

Maryland was founded in 1634 by Cecil Calvert (Lord Baltimore) as a haven for English Catholics, but from the beginning, the colony included a mix of religious groups, including Anglicans (members of the Church of England). For much of Maryland’s early history, there was no established church, and religious tolerance, at least in theory, was part of the colony’s founding principles. However, the 1688 Glorious Revolution in England, which resulted in the Protestant monarchy of William and Mary, had major repercussions in Maryland.

The Protestant Revolution of 1689 in Maryland was a bloodless coup that overthrew the Catholic proprietary government of Lord Baltimore. In 1692, the new Protestant-led assembly passed the “Act for the Service of Almighty God and the Establishment of the Protestant Religion within this Province.” This act created 30 Church of England parishes across Maryland, funded through local taxation.

The original four parishes, all without churches, within “Ann Arrundel” were: Herring Creek, South River, Middle Neck, and Broad Neck.

St. Anne’s Parish, originally called Middle Neck Parish, established St. Anne’s Church as the primary parish church, completed around 1700, and the parish took on the name of the church soon after. The same pattern is held for other parishes: South River became All-Hallows, Broad Neck became Westminster, and Herring Creek became St. James.

St. Anne’s, being the parish church of Annapolis, the new colonial capital, was seen as the appropriate location to represent the official, royal presence of the Church of England in Maryland.

Photo: Wikipedia

County Boundary Changes and Their Religious Impact (1698–1727)

In 1698, the upper portion of Anne Arundel County, including the lands along the Patuxent River and what is now modern-day Howard County, was temporarily transferred to Baltimore County jurisdiction. Yet the area remained remote from both the political seat in Baltimore and the parish seat of St. Paul’s in Baltimore County.

During the nearly 30 years under Baltimore County’s nominal control (1698–1727), the region’s settlers lived in an ecclesiastical and administrative limbo. From a church perspective, the vestry of St. Paul’s Parish was to offer meaningful oversight, deliver services, or collect taxes in this sparsely settled frontier. But it was remote from the southern part of this growing population. In 1727, the land was returned to Anne Arundel County. That transfer enabled the General Assembly to pass an act the following year (1728) formally establishing Queen Caroline Parish and explicitly recognizing the need for a dedicated parish to serve the frontier region between Annapolis and Baltimore.

The community in Elk Ridge had been dependent on traveling to St. Paul’s Parish north of the Patapsco River near Baltimore, so an act was passed in 1728 “for Erecting a New Parish, out of that Part of St. Paul’s Parish that lies in Anne‑Arundel County, and out of All‑Hallow’s [formerly South River Parish] and St. Anne’s Parishes in the said County.”

Without coordination between counties and parishes, settlers could have been left without access to sacraments, poor relief, or the moral and social structure the Church of England was designed to provide.

Before Queen Caroline Parish was formally created, the Anglican community in the upper Patuxent region had established a place of worship by 1711 called Elk Ridge Church as a satellite of St. Anne’s Parish to serve this remote population. The Ridgely, Dorsey, and Hammond families found a home here, as they did at St. Anne’s Church.

Administrative Hundreds

The concept of the “hundred” as an administrative unit in Maryland derived from English practice where a hundred traditionally represented an area that could provide one hundred men under arms or supported a hundred households. In Maryland since the mid-1600s, hundreds came to serve a similarly pragmatic purpose. Their primary functions included:

• Taxation Districts: Tax assessments were collected within each hundred.

• Militia Rolls and Muster Calls.

• Judicial Venues: Justices of the Peace presided over local courts within the hundreds, supported by sheriffs and constables.

• Religious Organization: Churchwardens and vestrymen often relied on the hundred structure to administer parish obligations.

In 1692, there were six hundreds in “Ann Arrundel” County, and by 1728, when Queen Caroline Parish was organized, the existing hundreds were Elk Ridge Hundred, Huntington Hundred, and Patuxent Hundred.

Parish Precincts

Tobacco was the cash crop in colonial Maryland, but it was also the backbone of both its secular economy and its ecclesiastical infrastructure. The legal mechanism for the parish’s financial support was finalized in the Act of 1702, which mandated an annual assessment of “forty pounds of tobacco” for every taxable inhabitant. This covered the salary of the parish minister; construction, furnishing, and maintenance of church buildings and chapels; parish poor relief, including aid to widows, orphans, and the indigent; and burial expenses and administrative costs for vestries.

The 1728 Act for Improving the Staple of Tobacco required each parish to be divided into smaller units called precincts to facilitate survey and reporting of all tobacco plants; appointment of two local men per precinct to inspect crops and record plantings; and coordination of destruction of excess or low-quality tobacco, including stalks and suckers, to ensure quality standards.

Prominent Vestrymen and Families

The founding vestry of Queen Caroline Parish in 1728 included John Dorsey (son of Edward ca. 1682-1735), Henry Ridgely “the Surveyor” (ca. 1690–1749) and John Hammond (1685–1735), descendants of prominent Anglican families with deep roots in the religious and political life of Anne Arundel County. Their prior involvement in St. Anne’s Church and Queen Anne Parish positioned them as natural leaders in the formation of the new parish.

The Dorsey Family. The Dorsey family served as the primary architectural and leadership bridge between St. Anne’s in Annapolis and Christ Church (Queen Caroline Parish). This connection began with Edward Dorsey, who was a founding vestryman of St. Anne’s and was commissioned in the late 1690s to oversee the construction of its first brick sanctuary. As the family shifted its economic focus inland toward the iron forges and tobacco fields of Elk Ridge, his sons, Caleb, John, and Joshua, fostered the St. Anne’s model in their new Elk Ridge home. Caleb, with his son John, had allowed the Elk Ridge Church to be built on their land prior to Queen Caroline Parish being established. In 1738, they fulfilled their promise and legally transferred the two acres of “New Year’s Gift” to the parish.

The Ridgely Family. The Ridgely family’s foundational influence on Queen Caroline Parish spanned three generations of civil and ecclesiastical leadership, beginning with Col. Henry Ridgely Sr. (ca. 1635–1710), a high-ranking militia officer and Provincial Assembly delegate who originally patented the 268-acre Ridgely’s Forest within the future parish bounds. His son, Capt. Henry Ridgely Jr. (1669–1700), solidified the family’s social standing through his marriage to Catherine Greenberry, daughter of Col. Nicholas Greenberry, further intertwining the Ridgelys with Maryland’s colonial elite before his early death and interment at St. Anne’s. The lineage culminated in the work of Henry Ridgely III (the “Surveyor”), who inherited these vast holdings and served as a founding vestryman of Queen Caroline Parish.

The Hammond Family. Like the Ridgelys, the Hammonds were part of the landed gentry that helped shape the sociopolitical structure of central Maryland. John Hammond (1685–1735), a founding vestryman of Queen Caroline Parish, descended from Col. John Hammond (ca. 1645–1707)—a Protestant Associator and key supporter of the Church of England following the Glorious Revolution. Col. Hammond was a founder of St. Anne’s Church in Annapolis after the 1692 Vestry Act and owned the Rich Neck estate on the South River. John Hammond’s father, Charles Hammond (1671–1713), remained active in the civil and ecclesiastical life of Anne Arundel County, serving in the Maryland Assembly.

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Read Hidden History of Howard County by Nathan Davis and Wayne Davis, published by The History Press, for more forgotten and hidden stories about Howard County.