| The frist church called St. Louis in Howard County was built in 1855, a few miles from Clarksville, on land donated by John O'Donnell and wife. Catholics in the area were at that time attended by the Sulpician fathers from St. Charles College and it was due to the energies of one of them, the Reverend Hugh Griffin, that St. Louis was begun.
When the original church became too small for the growing congregation, a new site in Clarksville was given in 1889 by John Clark for a church, school, and rectory. The parish cemetery and the old church, however, were maintained by the parish on the former O'Donnell land.
When Columbia was built, a part of St. Louis Parish was assigned to the Catholic division of the Interfaith Center located in Columbia. A third church called St. Louis was dedicated in Clarksville in November 1980.
The priests at St. Louis also served St Mary's Chapel at Doughoregan Manor. The chapel, which is the burial place of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, was devised in 1831 by him to the archbishop of Baltimore for "Public worship." It was built earlyin the eighteenth century and used by the Carroll family and probably by Catholics in that region until St. Louis was constructed. Hence records of the "Faithful" prior to 1831 in Clarksville and its environs would be recorded in the manor records. Unfortunately, no records prior to 1856 are held by St. Louis Parish. |
