White Marsh & Fingal
MARYLAND
In 1729, James Carroll bequeathed Carrollsburg—a 2500-acre plantation—as well as 30 enslaved persons to the Society of Jesus. The Jesuits renamed this Prince George’s County plantation “White Marsh.” White Marsh was the site of the Jesuit novitiate in 1819-23 and 1830-34. Carroll also left to the Jesuits at least portions of an Anne Arundel County property known as Fingal. The exact location and boundaries of Fingal are poorly understood, and the property was sold to members of the Duvall family (perhaps among other buyers) in the 1840s.
The land was worked by indentured and enslaved laborers, who grew tobacco and corn, and by the 18th and 19th centuries, wheat and other grains.
Enslaved Africans at White Marsh and Fingal principally cultivated tobacco and corn, similar to the other southern Maryland plantations.
Learn more about White Marsh & Fingal
Learn more about the history of White Marsh and Fingal at the Georgetown Slavery Archive and through the Maryland Province Archives at Georgetown.
In 1823, six enslaved persons from White Marsh were forcibly removed to Missouri. Thomas and Mary Brown, Moses and Nancy Queen, and Isaac and Susan Queen-Hawkins labored to support the Jesuits’ seminary in Florissant. The families of Jack and Sally Queen, and Protus and Anny Hawkins/Queen were also sent to Missouri in 1829. Learn more here.
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Today, portions of White Marsh are owned by the Archdiocese of Washington as Sacred Heart Church. Some of the White Marsh land is still owned by the Society of Jesus, but most of White Marsh and Fingal are now privately owned.
Archaeology at White Marsh & Fingal
No archaeological survey has taken place surrounding the historic Sacred Heart Chapel, nineteenth century rectory, or Sacred Heart Cemetery
Read more about the chapel here. View images of the chapel through the John Brosnan, S.J., Photographic Collection and the Library of Congress.
Between 2016 and 2017, archaeologists surveyed a wooded 150-acre parcel of the former White Marsh plantation. Four archaeological sites were identified, all dating to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The sites contain a mix of dwelling foundations and collapsed outbuildings, probably all from tenant farms.
In 1990, archaeologists surveyed a 25-acre parcel in Anne Arundel County that was once part of Fingal. Archaeologists found evidence of the site’s occupation by the Duvall family after 1850 (Cedar Grove, 18AN594), but the site was heavily disturbed. A housing development was built in this location.
