Bohemia, 1704-2004: A History of St. Francis Xavier Catholic Shrine in Cecil County, Maryland (review)

Saint Francis Xavier Church in Warwick, Maryland, is situated in what seems, to a present-day traveler, to be an isolated location. Yet, as Father Thomas J. Peterman writes in the tercentennial history of this venerable shrine of American Catholic history, such it has always been. Though it could never boast a sizable congregation, the church and plantation founded by the Jesuits between the two branches of the Bohemia river was important not only for the base it provided for missionary endeavors in the surrounding countryside, but in the near-by colony of Pennsylvania as well. As one who has written extensively on the history of the Catholic Church in the Delmarva peninsula, Peterman was the obvious choice to pen the chronicle of St. Francis Xavier, commissioned by the Old Bohemia Historical Society.

The book contains a wealth of information on the history of the church, its pastors and worshipers, and is organized primarily according to the tenure of the priests who cared for the often far-flung congregation, and the bishops under whom they served. It is attractively bound and contains numerous reproductions of photographs, maps, and drawings. The historical narrative that unfolds is presented in painstaking detail that is the obvious fruit of exhaustive research on the part of its author. Those who turn to its pages in search of the specifics of what daily life at St. Francis Xavier was like will not be disappointed: for example, in one of the book's endnotes, the author reprints the Bohemia Account Book kept by the priests of the mission from 1735 to 1761, including an extensive list of names of those who helped to sustain the work of the plantation—from carpenters and weavers to tenants and stocking-makers (pp. 57–62). The fascinating Diary of Father John Lewis (1775/76) is also reproduced in detail (pp. 67–74). Likewise, the baptismal and marriage registers of the church are also transcribed, both in the text and in endnotes. This feature alone makes the volume indispensable for anyone engaged in genealogical research on families from the Delmarva peninsula.

Yet this wealth of information, and the style in which it is related, also makes Bohemia 1704–2004 a challenging read. The widely cast and ample net of its author has collected a vast amount of data, the sheer accumulation and straightforward presentation of which can at times be daunting. We have for instance, on pages 136–145, a discussion of the pastorate of Jesuit Father Peter Epinette, which consists primarily of a continuous record of those he baptized, married, and buried—not the easiest of passages for a casual perusal.

However, for the serious student of the colonial church and the church on the Delmarva peninsula, and for anyone with a desire to know more about one of the most historic of Catholic America's parishes, this volume remains a truly indispensable and valuable resource.