The History of St. Anne’s

Opposition of Quakers and Roman Catholics in Maryland led the monarchs’ Privy Council to veto the act. The act was passed and rejected three more times, but when Queen Anne became monarch in 1702, she signed it. The Act included provisions for religious toleration for both Catholics and Quakers who were allowed to have their own places of worship but had to pay the tobacco tax. In 1694, the capital of the province was moved to what became in 1695, Annapolis. The royal governor, Francis Nicholson, laid out a street plan organized around two circles, one around the highest ground for the state house, and the second, smaller one for the church. St. Anne’s church has occupied this circle since.

Provisions were made to begin construction of the State House, King William’s School and the first Saint Anne’s. Progress in building the church was slow. The first appropriations for St. Anne’s were voted by the Assembly in 1695 and 1696. However, in 1699, the contractor, Edward Dorsey, was fired and fined 333 pounds for not fulfilling his agreement to do the building. The Assembly specified that the dimensions of the church were to be 65 feet long, 30 feet wide with a porch and a tower in which to hang a bell. The building was not completed until sometime after 1700. Early records have been destroyed, but it was certainly completed and in use by 1704.

As the church in the capital of a crown colony, St. Anne’s was a Chapel Royal, a status it retained until 1715. Throughout the colonial period in the 18th century, the Anglican Church continued to be “established” in Maryland. All citizens except Catholics were in theory obligated to attend the Anglican church, although in Annapolis, at least, this was not enforced. Rectors were appointed by the royal governors, and were compensated by the state. Vestries were guardians of public morals, with the power to authorize the sheriff to enforce their decisions. Vestries performed other governmental tasks as well. For example, the St. Anne’s vestry appointed tobacco inspectors.

The churchyard was the only public burial ground in the city. All this changed with the Revolutionary War. The state ceased to support the church financially, vestries appointed rectors, vestries no longer had governmental duties, and Catholics and others could worship openly or not at all. The new State of Maryland did retain some control of the (now Episcopal) church vestries, however, as outlined in the Vestry Act of 1798, which is discussed in an essay below.

RECTORS OF ST ANNE’S

1696-1698 Peregrine Coney

1699-1703 Edward Topp

1704-1710 James Wootton

1710-1711 Joseph Colbatch, of All Hallows Parish (part-time interim)

1711-1713 Edward Butler

1713-1714 Jacob Henderson, of Queen Anne’s Parish (part-time interim)

1714-1724 Samuel Skippon

1725-1739 John Humphreys

1739-1740 James Stirling

1740-1743 Charles Lake

1744 Samuel Edgar

1745-1749 John Gordon

1749 Andrew Lendrum

1749-1754 Alexander Malcolm

1754 John Myers

1754-1756 John McPherson, officiating

1757-1759 Clement Brooke, officiating

1759-1760 Alexander Williamson

1761-1767 Samuel Keene

1767-1768 Bennett Allen

1768-1770 William Edmiston

1771 Jonathan Boucher

1772-1775 John Montgomery

1775 Thomas Landrum (Lendrum)

1777 Thomas Read

1777-1780 William Hanna, of Westminster Parish (part-time interim)

1781-1785 Thomas Gates

1785-1804 Ralph Higginbotham

1804-1806 William Duke

1806-1807 William Lewis Gibson

1807-1811 Bethel Judd

1812-1816 William Nind

1816-1826 Henry Lyon Davis

1826-1834 John G. Blanchard

1834-1841 George McElhiney

1842-1844 Gordon Winslow

1844-1847 Hector Humphreys, officiating

1845-1847 Edwin M. VanDeusen

1847-1857 Cleland Kinloch Nelson

1857-1865 James Radcliffe Davenport

1865-1869 J. Pinkney Hammond

1869-1899 William Scott Southgate

1899-1917 James Patton McComas

1917-1943 Edward Darlington Johnson

1943-1956 Charles Edward Berger

1957-1973 James F. Madison

1974-1987 Richard V. Landis

1987-1989 Janice Gordon, Priest-in-Charge

1989-2006 John Randolph Price

2006-2007 Robert Wickizer, Priest-in-Charge

2007-2008 Gid Montjoy, IV, Priest-in-Charge

2008-2018 Amy Elizabeth Richter

2018-2019 Timothy Mulder, Interim Rector

2019- Manoj Mathew Zacharia

One Sunday, while preaching from the high pulpit in the new and elegant second St. Anne’s church building, the rector, Mr. Higginbotham, reached into his pocket to take out a handkerchief and with it came a deck of cards, which streamed over the floor below. This incident, among others, supports the conclusion of the Reverend Ethan Allen in his history of St. Anne’s, that “as a clergyman, his reputation suffered materially from his irregular habits.”

Ralph Higginbotham served as rector longer than all but two others in the entire history of our church, and far longer than any rector previous to his tenure. Born, educated and ordained in Ireland, he emigrated to Maryland sometime in the early 1780s. In August 1784, he was appointed head master of King Williams School, which, with the assistance of the Maryland Assembly, later became St. John’s College. On February 21, 1785, he was also, by vote of the Vestry, selected as rector of St. Anne’s.

Higginbotham took over when St. Anne’s was in perhaps its darkest hour. The Church of England was “established” in Maryland before the Revolution so the state directly supported the church and every non-Catholic citizen was in theory expected to attend. This was of course no longer the case, and the organization of the new Episcopal Church in Maryland was still in disarray. The church building had been taken down in 1775 in anticipation of building a new, bigger more elegant building, but no effort to build had been made for nine years. Services were held in a local theatre. The Vestry apparently usually met only once a year at Easter and there is almost no record that it did any business. In some years there was no rector. The Vestry, noting that many of the subscribers for support of the minister had discontinued their subscriptions, refused to pay the Reverend Thomas Gates, the rector previous to Higginbotham. It is not surprising then that Mr. Higginbotham not only continued his association with King Williams School/St. John’s College, but that he regarded it as his primary occupation. When St. John’s College was formally opened in November 1789, in a ceremony attended by members of the General Assembly, judges, city officials and other prominent citizens, Higginbotham, who was named vice principal of the new college, gave an oration on the advantages of a classical education. He taught Greek and Latin there for the rest of his life.

For the first year of his tenure, no progress was made toward building a new church. Then in 1786, the legislature finally intervened to fulfill its commitment, made before the war, to assist in paying for the construction of the new church. In November 1792, the new building was consecrated by the new, first Bishop of Maryland, Thomas John Claggett. It would perhaps be nice to believe that Higginbotham was the driving force behind the commitment to rebuild St. Anne’s, but in fact it was more the work of William Paca and other prominent Annapolitans who were church members before the war.

The new building was much larger than the one that had been taken down 18 years previously, but attendance was apparently much smaller, and the rector was not very attentive to his duties. He almost never attended the annual Diocesan convention, nor did he send any lay representative. Bishop Claggett sent the Reverend Joseph Bend to visit parishes on his behalf in 1798. He reported to the Bishop, “I preached at Annapolis, where the congregation was by no means proportioned to the size of the Church. As the Reverend Mr. Higginbotham had forgotten to convene his Vestry, I had no opportunity of learning precisely the state of this parish; but I believe that the evils which infest the country parishes prevail in a considerable degree even in the Metropolis.” Another report states that the Vestry requested starting a Sunday afternoon service, but the rector declined.

In February 1804, he resigned from St. Anne’s, but continued as vice principal of St. John’s until his death. The day his resignation was accepted, the Reverend William Duke was appointed rector by the vestry. Mr. Duke was a professor of languages at St. John’s and good friend of Bishop Claggett. In 1807, when the rectorship was again vacant, it was proposed to again elect Mr. Higginbotham, but the Vestry voted five to two against calling him back. Ralph Higginbotham died April 21, 1813, age 60. An obituary stated that he was “even more distinguished for benevolence than knowledge; whose Christianity was tolerant, whose affections were warm, and whose life was spent in the discharge of social and Christian duties.” However Ethan Allen summed up his performance at St. Anne’s, “He was unquestionably more devoted to his professorship in the college than to his rectorship in the church. How much of this was owing to his being compelled to derive his support from the former may be readily imagined.”

In August of 1857, St. Anne’s rector, Cleland Kinloch Nelson, resigned to take the position of Principal (i.e. President) of St. John’s College. He was the fourth, and last, St. Anne’s rector to also serve as Principal of St. John’s. His 10-year tenure at St. Anne’s had been peaceful and successful. Extensive repairs were made to the building and paid for; the congregations were full; there was a substantial increase in the number of communicants. Unfortunately, he endured two personal tragedies. In 1851 his wife died, leaving two young children. He remarried in 1854 to Mary Hagner, whose parents Peter Hagner and Frances Randall Hagner are memorialized in one of the stained-glass windows on the north side of the church. Mary and Cleland’s second child, Peyton, died two months after his birth in early 1857. The window above the altar depicting a child and a slain lamb is a memorial to him.

Nelson had big shoes to fill at St. John’s. The Reverend Hector Humphreys (memorialized by a stained-glass window beside the font), closely associated with St. Anne’s although never rector, had been Principal for 26 years, during which time the school had grown and prospered, at least modestly. Nelson was not very successful in his new role. He tried to be the strong disciplinarian that Humphries had supposedly been. One student complained to his grandmother that she should not “blame him if his letters to her were late, because the Principal would not allow him to walk as far as the post office.” More boys were expelled in his four-year tenure than in Humphreys’ entire 26 years. He was also at odds with the faculty. When the Civil War started, nearly half of the students withdrew to join armies or to go home. Revenues declined. Salaries were not fully paid. Nelson was offered the rectorship of All Hallows in Davidsonville, which he accepted effective in September 1861. The college tried to remain open that fall, but ultimately closed, remaining so for the duration of the war.

Compared to St. Anne’s, All Hallows thrived during the war. The numbers of communicants at St. Anne’s declined, as the rector, James Davenport, a staunch Unionist, dealt with a predominantly Confederate sympathizing membership. Numbers at All Hallows rose modestly, and the number of communicants came to exceed that of St. Anne’s. Nelson, from an old and distinguished Virginia family, probably had sympathy for the Confederate side. Davenport certainly thought so. Interestingly, the majority of baptisms, as well as many marriages and funerals at All Hallows during the period were of “colored people” (the standard term for African Americans at the time); very few at St. Anne’s were.

After the war, St. John’s reopened, and in 1866, Nelson left All Hallows to become Vice Principal of St. John’s and Professor of Mental, Moral and Social Science, and Lecturer on Natural and Revealed Religion and the Evidences of Christianity. He remained there until 1882. At the same time, the bishop appointed him Missionary for Freedmen in Annapolis, and chair of the Diocesan Committee on Freedmen. “Freedmen” was a term for emancipated slaves. The committee’s report in 1867, signed by Nelson, notes that “there is neither bond nor free….we are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). It is thus the duty of “every Churchman in Maryland” to extend to everyone “the blessings of the Gospel in the Church.” But the report’s closing paragraph notes a “point of still greater difficulty.” “Things are tending more and more to make this People as separate and distinct a nation as possible. If they are to be reached through the Church, it can only be done by following the example of antiquity in giving each distinct nationality Churches and Pastors of their own.” The focus should thus be on education, so that “they can be prepared to regulate their own Ecclesiastical affairs in communion with our Branch of the Church Catholic.” In other words, a policy of separate but equal.

Nelson was also once again associated with St. Anne’s. He assisted in services, and particularly in his role as Missionary for Freedmen in Annapolis, he conducted a large colored Sunday School on behalf of St. Anne’s, first in rented quarters near Market Place and then in a house, later replaced by a chapel building, on East Street. In 1873, he was briefly in charge of St. Anne’s when the rector, the Reverend Southgate, was on an extended European trip. In 1882, he was made an Assistant at St. Anne’s but held the position for but a few months before moving to Montgomery County where he became Principal of Brookeville Academy, a school for boys. In 1889, he left Brookeville to become Principal of a similar school, Rockville Academy, but ill health forced his resignation the following year. He died in October 1890, age 75. He is buried in our cemetery.

“He was not only the priest in charge of St. Anne’s but padre of the town.” So wrote Evangeline Kaiser White in her memoir of growing up in Annapolis. William Scott Southgate, the longest serving rector in St. Anne’s history, was called to Annapolis in October 1869 following two often-controversial preceding rectors. He quickly established a new mood and sense of mission for the church. He died suddenly, May 21, 1899. That he was well-loved by all of Annapolis was clear from his funeral service and from the ceremony two years later at the dedication of the Southgate Fountain on Church Circle in front of the old Post Office building.

At the funeral, attendees included ministers of all the other Annapolis churches, government officials, St. John’s faculty, Naval officers and “all the prominent citizens of Annapolis.” Public and private schools gave their students a holiday; many stores closed; because every seat was taken well before the service started, crowds stood outside; “the flowers sent were sufficient to cover every grave in the cemetery lot.”

Several thousand people gathered to witness the dedication of the Southgate Fountain on the second anniversary of his death. A choir of 500 school children, accompanied by the Naval Academy Band opened the ceremony. Later, choirs from St. Anne’s and three other local churches sang. A fountain was a particularly appropriate memorial. The speaker, Vestryman John Wirt Randall noted that, “Dr. Southgate had determined to erect, at his own expense, on this circle, a drinking fountain for thirsting man and beast — a purpose, the carrying out of which only his sudden death prevented. He had himself tasted of the ‘Fountain of Living Water.’ This memorial is a fit symbol of the refreshing grace of his life and his example.”

Southgate was born April 10, 1831 in Portland, ME. Graduating from General Theological Seminary in 1855, he was ordained priest in 1856. He served as Rector of St. Michael’s, Brattleboro, VT, and of St. Michael’s, Litchfield, CT, prior to St. Anne’s. In 1858, he married Harriet Talcott who died in Annapolis in 1886. They had ten children.

The church thrived under his watch. The number of communicants grew from 250 in 1870 to 493 in 1897; over the same period, the Sunday school tripled to 320 students. The debt incurred to build the then new church was paid off in 1871. One of his first acts was to reach out to an underserved community — residents of the Hell Point area near the dock. In 1871, he rented quarters on Market Space for a mission school and for services. By 1874, he had facilitated the purchase of property at the corner of Prince George and East Streets and began offering services there. A new chapel on the site, begun in 1878, was completed in 1886. The first service in the chapel proper — on the second floor — was conducted on Easter, 1886, but services were held on the lower floor earlier.

Southgate also reached out to the African American community, probably controversial in post Civil War Annapolis. The Market Space rental was used for a colored Sunday school and services by at least 1873. A sewing school for African American girls was also started. When the Prince George Street property was purchased and the chapel built, these schools continued there. About 1880, some St. Anne’s parishioners purchased a house on Cornhill Street, as a chapel for African Americans, called St. Philips. In 1887, St. Anne’s purchased a church on Northwest Street, and St Philips was moved there, where it remained until 1969. In 1887, St. Anne’s also hired the Reverend Joshua Massiah. Southgate noted, he “becomes minister at St. Philips, putting the work among the colored people of the church here in charge of a colored minister.” Massiah left for another calling after two years, and St. Philips was not to have another African American minister until 1901.

In Eastport, another underserved community, St. Lukes was founded in 1897, originally as a Boys Club. On land deeded to St. Anne’s in 1898, a small building was constructed and services offered soon after his death. In less than a decade, a St. Anne’s assistant was assigned to St. Luke’s as full-time Vicar.

The rectory on Hanover Street next to the Naval Academy, which had been used since 1759, was sold in the fall of 1885. A new rectory, at 201 Duke of Gloucester (the location of the present parish house) much closer to the church, was purchased for the Southgates earlier that year.

At the fountain dedication, John Wirt Randall said, “This community came to know him as. . . being an indefatigable toiler along the path of every ‘heavenward duty;’ as being filled with the true spirit of Christian humility and benevolence; and as having with it all, a certain simple, rugged, manly strength of bearing and of soul that inspired respect and confidence in all. . .”

In the summer of 1864, a Maryland Constitutional Convention produced a document that was ratified by a very close popular vote in late October. Among a number of controversial provisions, the new constitution contained a clause outlawing slavery. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to Maryland, which had not seceded, and the 13th amendment to the U.S. Constitution had not yet passed Congress. On Thanksgiving, 1864, Vestryman and prominent Annapolis citizen Alexander Randall wrote in his diary, “Mr. Davenport preached the Thanksgiving Sermon this morning, and tho in many respects an Excellent Discourse, I could not approve of the introduction of the freedom clause of the constitution as a cause of Thanksgiving — not because I may not think it Such, but because we know that many of his congregation did not. Many have by it been forcibly deprived of their means of Support, & therefore they could not join in offering up thanks for it . . .” Ten days later, he wrote, “Mr. Davenport’s Thanksgiving sermon has caused quite a commotion among the Congregation and I think may lead to his leaving the Parish.” And indeed, it did. Expressing sorrowful recognition “of alienations of feeling which our unhappy National troubles have engendered,” he handed in his resignation on January 31, effective the end of February and took a position as interim at St. John’s in Washington. After two months there, he and family went on an almost three-year trip to Europe.

Mr. Davenport’s rectorship seemed star-crossed from the beginning. Some two months after his arrival, on Valentine’s Day 1858, a spectacular fire destroyed the church. All of Annapolis, not just parishioners, rallied in support of the church and within a year, services were being held in our present church, although construction was not complete. The new rector played a lead role in the reconstruction effort.

His popularity was short-lived. A Connecticut native, he was a staunch Union man, and confrontational from the start of the War. South Carolina seceded in December 1860. Maryland Governor Hicks proclaimed January 4, 1861 as a day of “Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer for a restoration of friendship among the States of the Union.” According to a 19th century chronicler, that day Davenport argued in his sermon that the national troubles were brought on mainly by corruptions of politicians and “a sort of sans culottism“ [a term from the French Revolution, meaning radical Republicanism] that had mastered the minds of the people, causing them to look to a “higher law” and to consequently lack proper respect for “our Rulers.” He said that this was contrary to the teachings of the Bible, and told his listeners to give up their political passions and prejudices and submit to “the will of those who rule us by our own elections, and whose authority over us had the divine sanction taught in the Bible.”

Davenport’s confrontational stance was not entirely his own choice, although he apparently embraced it enthusiastically. The Bishop of the Diocese, Bishop Whittingham, was also staunchly Unionist and insisted that his clergy support the Union from the chancel and the pulpit. He viewed secession as a defiance of an ordinance of God and by its nature tantamount to sin. He insisted that the prayer for the President in the Book of Common Prayer was to be used as specified, and that failure to do so was a violation of ordination vows. He required that his clergy offer prayers of thanksgiving for Union victories, accusing priests who refused of defying Episcopal authority. He was well aware of the unpopularity of these policies, estimating that two-thirds of the laity and a fifth of the clergy disagreed. In fact, several clergy resigned rather than complying. St. Anne’s rector was in full compliance. In consequence, the parish rolls dwindled. When Mr. Davenport’s predecessor, the popular Reverend Cleland K. Nelson resigned as rector in 1857 to become President of St. John’s, St. Anne’s diocesan report listed 217 communicants; in 1862, 181; and in 1865, only 138. Two years after he left Annapolis, Davenport wrote to Whittingham, “I have not forgotten nor ceased to think of and to love you as my Bishop and also as my most kind sympathizing friend during the trials of my life in Maryland…”

It is interesting to note that Nelson, a Virginian, remained in Annapolis during the War, even though St. John’s was closed. Davenport reported to Whittingham that Nelson was arrested for “seditious utterance” on election day, November 1864.

Reverend Davenport returned to the United States in 1867 and settled in New York City where he served as assistant and as rector at several parishes, with considerable success, as well as serving on the examining board of General Theological Seminary and in other church related administrative roles. He died in April 1896, age 83.

On Sunday, February 28, 1943, Dr. Edward Darlington Johnson, St. Anne’s rector, after conducting morning services and a confirmation class, went home, where he suffered a massive heart attack. He died within an hour. He was 69. He had been rector for 26 years, the second longest tenure in St. Anne’s history. Active and beloved in the community, his body lay in state on Wednesday before the funeral, and lines waited to get in, despite heavy snow. The governor and the mayor issued condolences, noting the great loss to the community. He was a Rotarian and an Elk (at one point, Exalted Ruler of the Annapolis lodge).

Born in Pennsylvania and educated at the University of Maryland and at George Washington University, Dr. Johnson studied at General Theological Seminary and was ordained to the priesthood in 1899. He was called to St Anne’s from St. Paul’s, Brunswick, ME, beginning his service here on January 1, 1917. He succeeded The Reverend Joseph McComas, with whom the Vestry had had a stormy relationship. Many changes were made in the next 15 years, as the church thrived. In 1918, the chapel on the corner of Prince George and East Streets (you can see the building today), part of the parish for more than 30 years, was sold and became Kneseth Israel synagogue. McComas had opposed the sale.

In 1920, St. Anne’s gave up the pew rents system wherein a family, in return for a contribution, would have exclusive use of a pew. The reredos (the carving behind the altar) was installed in 1920. In the 20’s, a parish house was completed on the site of the rectory; the rectory (currently parish offices) was purchased and renovated; the organ was renovated; the church interior was repainted and redecorated, and the floor was tiled; the tower clock was replaced; electric lighting was installed; a parish hall was completed at St. Luke’s, Eastport (then a mission of St. Anne’s).

Then came the Depression. At first, it had less effect on Annapolis, and thus on St. Anne’s, than on much of the rest of the country. The Scroll, a monthly newsletter begun in 1931, noted with satisfaction that all bills were paid including the Diocesan obligation. Still, there appeared in caps in the December 1931 newsletter, called the Scroll: ARE YOU ONE WHO ENJOYS RELIGIOUS PRIVILEGES WITHOUT SHARING IN THE EXPENSES OF THE PARISH ACCORDING TO YOUR ABILITY?

By early 1933, the financial situation was more difficult. Johnson volunteered a 10% pay cut, from $3000 to $2700. His salary was not restored until 1935 and was still $3000 in 1941. The Vestry cut the sexton’s pay and fired the organist/choir director. His job was taken by two parishioners — an organist and a choir director — for nominal compensation. The Vestry stopped paying adults (all male) and older boys in the choir. Younger boys were paid $5 a week during Lent and $4 afterwards. The newsletter went from monthly to irregular issue, to once a year. Schemes for improving the financial health were of course discussed. For example, a proposal to rent the parish house for public dances was rejected, “because they are usually accompanied by disorder.” A second example: a proposal to issue bonds to parishioners and use the proceeds to pay off debts owed to banks was considered. The War lifted Annapolis and St. Anne’s out of the Depression as it did for the rest of the country. The 1943 Treasurer’s report noted that 1942 had been among the most favorable in the Church’s history.

The Reverend Charles Edward Berger, who had served briefly as an Assistant to Dr. Johnson, became rector in October 1943. Immediately, he and the vestry decided that a new lighting system for the church — the system that exists today — would be a suitable memorial. Delayed by the war, the Edward Darlington Johnson memorial lighting system was dedicated on April 22, 1945. The Right Reverend Helfenstein, retired Bishop of Maryland, based his dedication service sermon on the text, “He was not the light, but came that he might bear witness of the light.”

Located at the center of the south wall of the church, the Saint Anne Window is our most famous window. It depicts a scene of our patron, Saint Anne, instructing her young daughter, The Blessed Virgin Mary. Saint Anne is sitting in a full-backed chair, and Mary is kneeling at her mother’s side facing her. The window was designed and built by The Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company between 1892 and 1895 in New York City. It was donated to our church by Mrs. William Paine Clason (Julia Bordley Sands) in December of 1894, as a memorial. The plaque below the window reads: “In Loving Memory of My Parents Thomas and Sallie E. Sands”.

Captain Thomas Sands (1808-1883) was an officer in the Marine-Revenue Service, which later became part of the U.S. Coast Guard. Sands family members were long time parishioners of Saint Anne’s. Thomas’ father was a Vestry member and his brother served on the Vestry for 25 years. Sallie Whittington Sands (1809-1880) was also part of an old Annapolis family. Thomas and Sallie and five of their eight children are buried in our cemetery.

The education of Mary, where she is seen being taught by Saint Anne, is a popular motif. In our window, a scroll is draped over Saint Anne’s lap. She is pointing to the scroll and apparently teaching Mary about its Latin inscription: “Egredietur Virga de Radice Jesse” – translated as “But a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse”. This quotation is from Isaiah 11:1, where the prophet is foretelling that after the Babylonian exile only a stump of the Davidic Kingdom will remain. From this stump a new shoot, the Messiah, will arise.

Church legend has it that the St. Anne’s window was purchased by Mrs. Clason at the 1893 Chicago world’s fair (officially called the World’s Columbian Exposition) and then transported to Annapolis for installation. This is almost surely not the case. Tiffany’s exhibit at this world’s fair consisted of his famous chapel that included several ecclesiastical stained-glass windows. There is no record that the St. Anne window was part of the chapel. The world’s fair ran from May 1 to October 30, 1893. More than a year later, the vestry minutes of December 11, 1894 recorded Mrs. Clason’s intention to donate a memorial window. Perhaps, she attended the world’s fair, was inspired, and subsequently commissioned the window to be designed and built at the Tiffany company in New York. We do not have records that indicate the date of installation, but it was most likely done during 1895 or 1896.

After the fair, Tiffany reinstalled the chapel at his studios in New York. Several years later, the chapel was moved to a crypt in New York’s Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine. In 1916, Tiffany reacquired the chapel and installed it in a building on his Long Island estate. In 1959, Jeanette and Hugh McKean acquired the remains of the chapel and reassembled all of the original furnishings and windows. The chapel is now part of The Charles Homer Morse Museum of American Art in Winter Park, Florida. This museum is a most beautiful exhibit and collection of Louis Comfort Tiffany’s art.

The Saint Anne Window is characteristic of Tiffany’s work during the late 19th century. “Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company” is etched into a small panel on the lower right inside of the window. The glass made at Tiffany Studios was called opalescent as opposed to the traditional pot metal glass. The former was varied in color and texture, while the latter was uniformly colored and translucent. While the pot metal glass was often painted with enamel to create form and visual effects, the opalescent glass could be selected to mimic, for example, foliage, water or a sunlit horizon. Tiffany, in a sense, was painting with his glass as opposed to his competitors who were painting on the glass. As an active participant in his company’s operations, Tiffany oversaw a multitude of decorative elements for many of America’s leading congregations – Protestant, Catholic and Jewish.

Above the exit door at the south side of the church, in the rear of the nave, is a semi-circular, “transom” window – the Angel Window. The Angel, frequently used artistically as a Messenger of God, is proclaiming St. Paul’s Gospel of Love as depicted in the scroll held up with his left hand – “And now abidith faith, hope, charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity” (1 Corinthians 13:13). In memorial windows such as this, the Angel with wings can also be used to represent the ascension of the dead. In this case, most likely both symbols are being used.

The window was designed and built by Tiffany Studios, Inc., of New York, successor company to The Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company that produced our other, better known, Tiffany creation, the Saint Anne Window. The Angel Window was made using their famous opalescent glass as opposed to the traditional pot metal glass used by most other manufacturers. The opalescent glass is varied in color and texture, while the pot metal glass was uniformly colored and translucent. While the pot metal glass was often painted with enamel to create form and visual effects, the opalescent glass was artfully selected to mimic a painting. The Angel Window is a wonderful example of this. This effect of the opalescent glass, in this window, has beautifully portrayed the foliage, the grass, the rocks, the water, the sunlit sky and the angel’s robes and wings. Tiffany, in a sense, was painting WITH his glass, as opposed to his competitors who were painting ON the glass.

The Angel Window was erected in 1914 as a memorial to Rear Admiral Thomas Thompson Caswell, USN, a parishioner and long-time choir member of Saint Anne’s, who served on the Vestry from 1899 to 1913. He was reelected to the Vestry in spring of 1913, shortly before he died. He died, age 73, on July 10, 1913 in Weekapaug, Rhode Island, where he spent his summers in retirement. He was twice married, first in 1867 to Gertrude E. Ford who died in 1894, and then in 1897 at St. Anne’s to Elizabeth Blanchard Randall, who died in 1898. Born in Rhode Island in 1840, in 1861 at age 21 Caswell joined the Navy as an Assistant Paymaster. On June 5, 1899, he retired after thirty-eight years of service in the Pay Corps (now called the Supply Corps). In 1892 he was promoted to Pay Director, a position having the rank of Captain. He was transferred to the retirement list with the rank of Rear Admiral. Following his funeral service at St. Anne’s, he was buried with full military honors in the cemetery at the Naval Academy.

His only daughter, Rosalee Caswell Hood, commissioned and dedicated the window. Her husband, Rear Admiral John Hood, USN, had a distinguished career, commanding three battleships including the dreadnaught, USS Delaware, and serving as a member of the General Board of the Navy, prior to his retirement in 1918.

In the chancel of our second church building was a memorial plaque to George McElhiney, who was rector from 1834 until his death in 1841. The Valentine’s Day fire in 1858 destroyed the building and most everything in it, including the plaque. In the new building (our present church), one of the first memorial windows to be installed was the McElhiney window, pictured here. It shows Christ, the Good Shepherd, bringing home the lost lamb (Luke 15: 4-6). The inscription reads: “Rev. George McElhiney D.D. for more than six years the faithful rector of this parish, while absent from his flock on an important public duty HE was called to his reward. MAY II MDCCCXLI. AET. XLIII “ Until 1969, the window was in the opening right next to the Holy Family Chapel on the north side of the church. In 1969, the Alden vestibule, which today serves as an emergency exit, was completed, and the window was moved into that vestibule, where it can only be seen from the Chapel rail and from the very front pews.

George McElhiney was born of Anglican parents in Ireland in 1799. At age 10, his uncle took him to London and subsequently to Paris to be educated, but because of the Napoleonic wars, took him at age 16 to Baltimore. George had originally intended to be a merchant, but soon decided instead to be a minister, and began a study of theology which led to his ordination at St. Paul’s, Baltimore in 1820, at age 21. He became rector of St. James in Baltimore County. In the late 1820s, he was also the superintendent of St. James Academy, a private school still operating today. In late 1829 he moved to Somerset Parish in Princess Anne, on the Eastern Shore, and in October 1834 he was called to the rectorship of St. Anne’s. His untimely death cut short a distinguished ministry. He was 10 times a member of the diocesan standing committee and served as a diocesan delegate to the General Convention in 1834. The important public duty noted in the window inscription refers to his appointment by the diocese to raise funds for a permanent Episcopal fund. He vigorously and successfully engaged in this effort and had raised subscriptions of some $62,000. He was in Leonardtown in St. Mary’s County when he was seized with a “violent congestive fever” (i.e. malaria) and died in five days. He is buried in Leonardtown.

There is no doubt that he was well loved. At the diocesan convention, which met shortly after his death, Bishop Whittingham eulogized him at length in his address to the convention. A small part of what he said: “…how shall I express the sense of bereavement with which all the diocese (for the whole diocese knew, and, for good reason, loved him,) is yet smarting? A truer soldier never bore the banner of the cross, a steadier servant never ministered in the Savior’s household” The convention passed a resolution of sympathy and regret, and resolved to provide George’s widow $800. His friend, Rev. Hector Humphreys (for whom we also have a memorial window, on the opposite side of the church), president of St. John’s, delivered the funeral sermon, and in fact became the interim minister until a successor could be called. Humphreys would later write about McElhiney, “…no pastor ever had a firmer hold than he upon the affections of his people.” McElhiney was a very close friend of William Pinkney, some 10 years his younger, who later became the fifth Bishop of Maryland. Pinkney regarded McElhiney as in effect a mentor. Some years after his friend’s death, Pinkney wrote, ”For varied and exact knowledge, admirably disciplined mind, the heart to feel for another’s woes and the heart ‘to grapple as with hooks of steel,’ those it loves, fidelity to his holy calling and the bright gifts to adorn it, he had but few equals in his day and no superior that I know of.”

The window next to the font depicts the crown of thorns, a paten and in the center a complex symbol representing IHS, the first three letters of the Greek word for Jesus. The inscription along the arch enclosing the three symbols reads:

“Rev. John G. Blanchard preached Christ ten years in this Parish. When about to enter another field, he rested from his labors Oct. 8, 1834, Age 35”

This window was installed in the early 1860s and was one of the first —perhaps the first— memorial window installed in the newly constructed church. That The Reverend Blanchard was much loved by his parishioners is indicated by a series of resolutions passed by the Vestry and published in several newspapers following his death. These included, among others:

“Resolved: That to testify our personal respect for the memory of the deceased, we will wear and recommend to the congregation to wear the usual badge of mourning for 30 days. “Resolved: That St. Anne’s Church be hung with the customary emblems of mourning. “Resolved: That Alexander C. Magruder, Doct. (sic) J. Ridgley and Alexander Randall be a committee to procure and have erected in the Chancel of the Church, to the memory of our deceased Rector, a marble tablet with an appropriate inscription.”

That tablet was destroyed when the church burned down in 1858, so the current window replaced the tablet as a memorial to him.

The ancestors of John Gowen Blanchard (1799-1834) settled in eastern Massachusetts in the 1630s and most remained there. John however, decided to migrate to Maryland, originally to study law, but soon decided on theology instead. He was ordained deacon in the Episcopal Church, October 13, 1824 and shortly became an assistant to St. Anne’s rector, The Reverend Henry Lyon Davis. When Davis, a controversial character, resigned, Blanchard became rector in 1826. The congregation grew considerably under his leadership, and although young, he quickly became an important clergyman in the Diocese, being placed on the Standing Committee of the Diocese eight times. The Standing Committee provides advice to the bishop on a variety of important matters and serves as the ecclesiastical authority of the diocese in the absence of a bishop. The Diocese of Maryland was in fact without a bishop from 1827 to 1830. In 1832, Blanchard was a Maryland delegate to the national church’s General Convention.

Despite his success and popularity at St. Anne’s, Blanchard resigned, effective in 1834, to take a position as an Associate Rector of St. Paul’s Church in Baltimore, a larger congregation where he would earn a larger salary. He was induced to go to St. Paul’s by his good friend William Edward Wyatt, long an Associate Rector there, who had recently become Rector. In late September 1834, he took lodging in a boarding house in Baltimore, while he looked for housing for his wife and four children. Two days after his arrival, he took ill, and in less than two weeks he was dead. He was 35 years old.

During his time at St. Anne’s, Blanchard had a close friendship with Alexander Randall, four years his junior, who was a newly elected Vestryman in 1826. Randall was subsequently a leading lay-person at St. Anne’s for most of the 19th century. Randall remained close to Blanchard’s family. In 1853, Alexander’s wife, Catherine died. (There is a memorial window to her on the north side of the church.) In January 1856, Alexander married Elizabeth Blanchard, John Blanchard’s eldest child and only daughter, who was only six at the time of her father’s death. Alexander and Elizabeth had seven children, several of whom became prominent citizens of Annapolis and members of St. Anne’s.

The window pictured is on the north side of the nave by the Holy Family Chapel. It is a memorial to Catherine G. Randall (1807-1853). Installed a few years after the present church was built, following the destruction of the second church building by fire in 1858, the window is matched in design with the memorial window for the Reverend George McElhiney. That window, now in the vestibule entrance to the church next to the Holy Family Chapel, was originally right beside the Randall window. The memorial reads: Catherine G. Randall entered into rest January X, MDCCCLIII “My Grace is Sufficient for Thee” (2 Corinthians 12:9). That verse gave her solace as she prepared for a breast cancer operation that eventually led to her death. In a letter to the rector, The Reverend Cleland Nelson, to be opened only in the event of her death, she wrote, “If you think, Dear Sir, that it may do good and that God’s glory may be promoted thereby, I would like you to give to the Congregation my dying testimony of the Efficiency of religion to sustain a poor feeble mortal even under such a fiery trial as mine –“

Catherine was the daughter of William Wirt (1772-1834), who held the position of Attorney General of the United States longer than anyone in history, serving 12 years under Presidents Monroe and John Quincy Adams. He was also a third party candidate for President in 1832.

In 1841, Catherine married Alexander Randall (1803-1881), attorney, politician, and arguably the most prominent lay member of St. Anne’s throughout the 19th century. Alexander served in the U.S. House of Representatives and as Attorney General of Maryland. In 1872, he nominated Ulysses Grant for President of the United States at the Republican National Convention. He was on the St. Anne’s vestry for 40 years, longer than anyone in history, as well as serving as a warden and frequent delegate to the annual Diocesan convention. The reredos behind our altar is a memorial to him. At 34, Catherine married late for a woman in the early 19th century. In her 12 years of marriage to Alexander, she bore eight children. Three sons pre-deceased her; one son and four daughters lived to adulthood. Her son, John Wirt Randall, joined his father’s law firm. Like his father, he was long a St. Anne’s Vestry member, serving 37 years from 1875 until his death in 1912. The church bells that ring every quarter hour are a memorial to him.

Catherine’s death was noted in the Baltimore Sun, January 11: “It is no part of our present office to reveal the courtesies, beauties and charities of her life, or to draw the vail [sic] from the quiet and blessed chamber in which, amid the tears of bereaved ones, the watchings of angels, and the smile of God, she breathed out her pure and gentle spirit.”

Alexander remarried in 1856, to Elizabeth P. Blanchard (1827-1895) daughter of his good friend and previous rector of St. Anne’s, The Reverend John Blanchard. They had seven children. There is speculation, and it is only that, for there is no documentation, that Alexander paid for two windows in the new church — one for his late wife and one for the father of his second wife. The memorial window for The Reverend Blanchard is on the south side of the church, beside the font, across from the Catherine Randall window. The two window and the windows of identical design next to each of them, were installed in the 1860s.

The window pictured is a memorial to Peter Hagner (1772-1853) and his wife Francis Randall Hagner (1787-1863). It was designed and constructed by the Franz Mayer Studios of Munich, Germany and installed in 1908. The company, founded in 1847 and still in business today, has created thousands of stained-glass windows in churches, particularly Roman Catholic churches, throughout the world, including St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome, and some 26 Catholic cathedrals in the United States. Our window is typical of Mayer windows from the 19th and early 20h century, with a richly colored biblical scene bordered by an elaborate architectural frame, and an equally richly bordered lower panel containing the memorial.

The scene depicted is the “presentation” (Luke 2:22-38). Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem 40 days after his birth to complete Mary’s ritual purification after childbirth and to perform the redemption of the first-born son, in obedience to the Torah. This event is celebrated on February 2 (40 days after Christmas) as “The Presentation of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple” or more simply as “Candlemas.” At the Temple they meet Simeon, who is perhaps a high priest, although Luke does not explicitly say so. Simeon had been told by the Holy Spirit that “he should not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.” He took Jesus into his arms and uttered the “Nunc Dimittis“ prayer that is a part of our Evening Prayer service. The other figure in the scene is the prophetess Anna, according to Luke, age 84, (Luke 36-38) who spoke to everyone there of Jesus’ importance to redemption.

Peter Hagner, known as the “watchdog of the Treasury,” was first appointed as a 21-year-old clerk in the Treasury Department by George Washington in 1793. He served in that department for the next 56 years, retiring the year before his death. He became the so-called 3rd auditor when that position was created in 1817 by President Monroe. Twice, by direct votes, Congress expressed its appreciation of his services in the settlement of large and important claims. In 1806 he married Francis Randall of the prominent Annapolis and St. Anne’s family. Francis was an older sister of Alexander Randall, arguably the most prominent lay member of St. Anne’s through the 19th century, serving on the Vestry for nearly 40 years. Peter and Francis’ son, A.B. Hagner was a long-time law partner of Alexander Randall, as well as being a St. Anne’s Vestryman for 15 years. Peter and Francis spent much of their lives in Washington DC. Peter was one of eight trustees of St. John’s, Lafayette Square during its construction, and served on the church’s first Vestry. There is a stained-glass window memorializing Peter and Francis in that church as well as the one in ours. Peter and Francis are buried in St. Anne’s Cemetery.

The window pictured, featuring a Celtic wheel cross, a chalice and an open Bible, is a memorial to The Reverend Hector Humphreys (1797-1857). The Bible quotes Proverbs 9:10, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.” The window and its mate, a memorial to The Reverend John Blanchard, are next to the font on the south side of the narthex. The Blanchard window was probably the first memorial window installed in the present (then new) church, perhaps as early as 1859. The Humphreys window was installed sometime soon thereafter. Hector Humphreys was the Principal (i.e. president) of St. John’s College from 1831 until his death. In the early 1800s, three St. Johns Principals were also rectors of St. Anne’s at the same time, but Humphreys was never rector, although he served for several months in an acting capacity when the church was between rectors in 1844 and again in 1847.

Hector Humphreys was born in Connecticut, graduated class valedictorian from Yale in 1818, and decided to become a lawyer. He passed the bar and practiced briefly, but soon felt called to the church and was ordained in 1825. He served as rector of St. Luke’s, Glastonbury CT, while also serving on the faculty of Trinity College, first as a tutor, then as a professor of ancient languages. When he was selected as Principal of St. Johns, the college was on hard times financially. A man of substantial energy, with great powers of persuasion, he is credited with getting the state legislature to triple its contribution to the school and arranged for the state Governor to be the ex officio President of the Board of Visitors. He travelled throughout the state soliciting subscriptions for capital improvements, which resulted in the construction of what was named Humphreys Hall shortly after his death, as well as the Pinkney, Chase-Stone, and Paca-Carroll buildings. He revamped the curriculum, adding to the traditional offerings laboratory science, particularly chemistry, which he taught. He seems in fact to have taught almost everything. A biographer who studied at St. Johns said, “we recited to him in Mineralogy and Geology, Evidences of Christianity, Moral and Intellectual Philosophy, Rhetoric and Logic. Under his instruction we studied Butler’s Analogy, Kame’s Elements of Criticism, Elementary Political Economy, and Kent’s Commentaries on International Law. . . He taught us the use of the quadrant . . .He discoursed to us on Astronomy and taught us to use the College telescope, besides instructing us in the final courses of Latin and Greek, in which languages he was deeply versed.”

He was a commanding presence, tall with a deep voice, and apparently sometimes a gruff manner. He was an eloquent speaker. A man who had heard him preach at St. Anne’s in 1842, wrote, “The whole discourse was characterized by force, beauty and eloquence seldom, if ever equaled, and will be long remembered by his auditors, and deservedly classed among the finest specimens of sacred eloquence…. his powerful and fervent eloquence, gushing as it were from the inmost recesses of his soul, testify that he is designated by Religion, to the office of the sublimest import, the dispensation of God’s holy word.”

Hector Humphreys died January 25, 1857. In its obituary, the Annapolis Gazette said, ”Those who enjoyed the privilege of knowing him as a friend will corroborate our assertion of his genuine benevolence and unaffected piety. Outwardly he was stern, as became his vocation; inwardly he was warm-hearted, generous to a fault, and without blemish.” The faculty and students separately published tributes of respect, and the students wore badges of mourning for 30 days. He is buried in St. Anne’s cemetery, alongside his wife Mariette, who died in 1874, and one of his sons.

The window pictured is a memorial to Pay Director James D. Murray, USN (1829-1906) and his wife Elizabeth M. Spencer (1840-1906) given by their children. It was designed and constructed by the Franz Mayer Studios of Munich, Germany and installed in 1908. The company, founded in 1847 and still in business today, has created thousands of stained-glass windows in churches, particularly Roman Catholic churches, throughout the world, including St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome, and some 26 Catholic cathedrals in the United States. Our window is typical of Mayer windows from the 19th and early 20th century, with a richly colored biblical scene bordered by an elaborate architectural frame, and an equally richly bordered lower panel containing the memorial.

The scene depicted shows Mary visiting her cousin Elizabeth, who is pregnant with John the Baptist. (Luke 1:39-56) When Elizabeth greets Mary, the baby stirs joyfully in her womb. Filled with the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth praises Mary for her faith and recognizes that she will be the mother of Christ. Mary responds with the beautiful Magnificat canticle, which has been part of our Evening Prayer service from the first version of the Book of Common Prayer to the present day. The other figures in the scene are Joseph, standing behind Mary, and Elizabeth’s husband Zechariah.

James Murray was a career Naval Officer in what was then called the Pay Corps (now the Supply Corps). He retired in 1891 as a Pay Director, equivalent in rank to a Captain. Among his assignments were two tours at the Naval Academy, including his last before retirement. He grew up in Annapolis. His father, who owned “Acton” in Murray Hill, was a Congressman, and served three different times as a member of the St. Anne’s Vestry. His grandparents were St. Anne’s members as well. He first married Catherine Spencer, daughter of another prominent local citizen, W. A. Spencer, who long served as chief clerk of the Maryland Court of Appeals. Married in 1858, they had one daughter, but Catherine died in early 1859. They had been married less than a year. Two years later James married Elizabeth Spencer, memorialized on the window, who was Catherine’s younger sister. They had four children, including Katherine, who married The Reverend Joseph P. McComas in 1899, shortly after he became Rector of St. Anne’s. James inherited Acton, and he and Elizabeth lived there for the remainder of their lives. Elizabeth predeceased James by eight months. He served on the St. Anne’s Vestry from 1897 until his death. Among his activities in retirement was a real estate venture in collaboration with Daniel Randall, resulting in the present half-timbered building, and the next door “Day Building,” at the corner of West and Northwest Streets, across from the church.

The window is “paired” with the Hagner-Randall memorial window next to it. It is also a Mayer window of identical design, also installed in 1908. Both windows depict stories from the Gospel of Luke, which involve scripture incorporated into Evening Prayer: the Magnificat in the Murray window and the Nunc Dimittis in the Hagner window. The families knew each other well, and surely collaborated on the windows. Francis Randall Hagner, who is memorialized by the Hagner-Randall window, was the aunt of John Wirt Randall, who served on the Vestry with James Murray. James’ daughter, Katherine McComas, was of course heavily involved at St. Anne’s, and in fact served together with John Wirt Randall on the church’s music committee.

In the chancel clerestory high and directly above the altar, the two windows pictured are remembrances of two children who died young. They are among the very first memorial windows in our building, perhaps having been installed as early as 1859, when the church was completed following the complete destruction of the previous building by fire in February 1858. The windows were surely in place in the early 1860s.

The one on the left, depicting a child and a slain lamb, remembers Bernard Peyton Nelson who lived barely a month. The inscription under the child reads “To A Babe in Paradise.” Around the window is inscribed “Bernard Peyton Nelson, Born February 25, 1857 — Died, April 2, 1857.” Peyton (he was apparently called Peyton) was one of four children born to The Reverend Cleland Kinloch Nelson (1814-1890) and Mary Hagner Nelson (1819-1911), two of whom lived to adulthood. The Reverend Nelson was from a distinguished Virginia family. His grandfather was governor and a signer of the Declaration of Independence; his father a congressman; one uncle was also governor and another was Chancellor of The College of William and Mary. He became rector of St. Anne’s in late 1847. In late 1857, he resigned to become principal (president) of St. John’s College. He remained closely associated with St. Anne’s and with the diocese. He may in fact have been the first clergyman to preach in the building, for he asked to use the church for a baccalaureate service even before the congregation moved back in, and the new rector was out of town that day. St. John’s closed for a period during the Civil War. A Confederate sympathizer, Nelson remained in Annapolis and was arrested at least once for “seditious utterances.” He returned to the college as vice-principal when it reopened, a position he held until his death in 1890. In 1873 he reported to the bishop that “I have for several months been conducting a service for the colored people of the city every Sunday p.m.” He frequently assisted during. William Southgate’s rectorship. In 1882, he was the first clergyman during Southgate’s service to be officially designated as an assistant. In 1872, a nephew, named after him, graduated from St. John’s and went on to be ordained, and eventually became the Bishop of the Diocese of Georgia.

The angel in the window on the right has a scroll that reads “To My Angel Child. Of Such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” It is a memorial to Frances Holland (“Fanny”) Tuck. Fanny was the daughter of Judge William Hallam Tuck (1808-1884) and Margaret Chew Tuck (1818-1885). She was born in 1843 and died in 1850. Three of Fanny’s five siblings lived to adulthood. Judge Tuck grew up in Annapolis and went to St. John’s, but subsequently practiced law in Prince George County where he was repeatedly elected to the state legislature. He was Speaker of the House of Delegates in 1837. He was elected Judge of the Court of Appeals in 1850, and at that time moved back to Annapolis where he quickly became a prominent citizen, serving on the City Council and as a County Commissioner. He was elected to the Vestry in 1855 and served the 30 years until his death. Following the fire, he and Alexander Randall constituted the architect and building committee and as such were largely responsible for our present building. A long obituary in the Annapolis newspaper, the Maryland Republican, said, “This giant of intellect and purity and piety has gone to the reward of the just made perfect — with such loving commendations as rarely follow the modern man to his grave.”

On June 15, 1945, John Bloodgood Wells III drown in Lake Pontchartrain, near New Orleans. He was two days past his 18th birthday and had a week earlier graduated from the Isidore Newman School, a private high school in New Orleans. He had been accepted for training in the Navy Air Force. The following Monday he was buried in our cemetery following a service at the church. The two blue clerestory windows immediately to the lectern side of the altar were given in his memory by his parents, probably in the late 1950s. The one nearest the altar depicts Christ with outstretched arms; the second one a chalice. No record of the firm that created them has been found. The Wells family in the Annapolis area traces back to before 1800, and many members are buried in St. Anne’s Cemetery. At the time of the death of John III, his father, John B. Wells Jr. (1888-1969) was living in New Orleans as a branch manager of a Baltimore based firm. He and his wife subsequently moved back to Annapolis, resuming their association with St. Anne’s. John Jr. was elected to the Vestry in 1954. At one time he was the acting chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Chase Home. John Wells Jr. and his wife Carolyn are interred in our cemetery.

John Wells Jr. was the executor of the estate of Maud Linthicum and almost surely had a hand in the acquisition of the two blue windows on the pulpit side. The one nearest to the altar, depicting Christ with outstretched arms, is almost identical to the Wells window; the second, depicting a dove and a font, is closely similar to the Wells chalice window. Ms. Linthicum gave these windows in memory of the family of her father, Theodore Hodgkin Linthicum, a dairy farmer, who died in 1890. Maud, born in 1875, was the second of nine children. All survived to adulthood, and with one exception, all, including Maud, died unmarried. That married sister had no children. Seven of her siblings died in the 1950s; one died earlier. Maud, surviving them all, died in 1963, leaving no close relatives. She and many of her siblings are buried in our cemetery.

The newest and most modern two windows are the hardest to see from the nave. On the lectern side, the window depicts Pentecost, with 10 saints’ heads; on the pulpit side, Moses and the burning bush. They were produced by Hogan Studios, today located in Brookings, OR and Chico, CA. They were given by Rear Admiral Hubert E. Strange, USN (1903-1987) and were installed in the 1960s, perhaps as early as 1964. Admiral Strange, a Naval Academy graduate, retired in 1947 and settled in Annapolis. Active at St. Anne’s, he was elected to the Vestry in 1958. Although born in Annapolis, Admiral Strange was raised in PA. However, much of the Strange family, including his uncle Franklin, remained in Annapolis. The burning bush window is designated as a memorial gift from Admiral Strange’s cousin, Helen L. Strange, honoring her parents, C. Franklin and Pearl H. Strange. Following a lengthy illness, Helen died in January 1964, just three days after her father Franklin died. Her mother and father divorced when Helen was a child. Both Helen and Franklin are buried in St. Anne’s cemetery. Admiral Strange and his wife Jean are interred in the Naval Academy Cemetery.

The first window on the left as you enter the nave of the church depicts Christ quieting the wind and waves (Matthew 8:26; Mark 4:39; Luke 8:24). The memorial at the bottom reads: “TO THE GLORY OF GOD AND IN LOVING MEMORY OF WILLIAM SCOTT SOUTHGATE. BORN APRIL 1831. DIED MAY 1899. RECTOR OF THIS PARISH OCTOBER 1869 TO MAY 1899. ERECTED BY HIS CHILDREN.” The window, given by Southgate’s three daughters, was unveiled on All Saints’ Day, November 1, 1903 – a date chosen because their parents were married on All Saints’ Day in 1858. The window was created by the New York firm of Heinigke and Bowen. John LaFarge and Louis Comfort Tiffany, both of whom held patents for types of opalescent glass, later known as Tiffany glass, are the most famous turn-of-the- 20th-century American makers of stained-glass, but Otto Heinigke was at the time, equally famous. Heinigke’s style of stained-glass window making is unique as he was one of the first to combine the traditional European stained-glass technique of painted pot metal glass with that of the contemporary opalescent glass. Heinigke’s colleague, Owen Bowen, worked with both LaFarge and Tiffany prior to the founding of Heinigke and Bowen in 1890. Bowen died in 1902, but the firm retained his name until Heinigke’s death in 1915. Heinigke’s art glass windows filled the homes of the important members of New York Society: Whitney, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Gould, Morgan, Guggenheim, Marshall Field, and Carnegie all had windows designed by Otto Heinigke. Most of them did not have windows by Tiffany. Heinigke also designed windows for the New York Stock Exchange, the New York Yacht Club, the Library of Congress, and Carnegie Hall. There are significant Heinigke windows in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, in St Johns Lafayette Square in Washington, and in numerous churches, universities and public spaces in the East and Midwest.

William Southgate’s almost 30-year rectorship of St. Anne’s was the longest in the entire history of the church. He arrived in 1869, following two controversial rectors, each of whom was unpopular with significant numbers of parishioners. In contrast, he was popular with everyone, not just with the congregation, but with townspeople unconnected with the church. According to the news account of his funeral, “The crowded edifice, which was filled to overflowing; the presence of Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, Lutherans, Presbyterians and persons of all denominations – preachers as well as laymen; in fact persons in all walks of life, high and low, white and colored – bore striking testimony to the affection and esteem in which the dead clergyman was held.” Many who arrived too late to get a seat lined the Circle during the service. St. John’s students and pupils of local public and private schools were given holiday. A number of stores closed. The service was conducted by Bishop Paret, assisted by four priests.

St. Anne’s grew and prospered during Southgate’s tenure. The number of communicants doubled over the course of his rectorship. St. Philips was founded; he bought The Reverend J.B. Massiah to Annapolis, “putting the work among the colored people of the church here in charge of a colored minister.” St. Luke’s in Eastport was started in 1897 as an outreach project of St. Anne’s. The mission chapel on East Street was built to serve people who might not feel at home in the assigned pews of the church. A new rectory, on the site that now houses our parish house, was purchased, replacing a house on Hanover Street that had been the rectory for more than 100 years.

A native of Maine, Southgate attended Bowdoin College, then General Theological Seminary in New York. He was ordained in 1856 and served as rector of a church in VT and then one in CT during the next seven years. From early 1864 until he was called to St. Anne’s he and his family traveled. They spent more than two years in Mexico plus time in England, in New Orleans and in other American cities. He married Harriet Talcott in 1858. They had 10 children, six of whom survived to adulthood. She died in 1886 and is buried alongside him in St. Anne’s Cemetery.

Of the nine full-sized memorial windows in the nave, the one that gets perhaps the least attention is the George Hawkins Williams window, located on the south side next to the side exit. It depicts Christ raising a kneeling young man. Above them are three angels, one holding a crown. There is an inscription from Revelation: “Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life.” (Revelation 2:10). At the bottom of the window, two angels hold a scroll, which reads in Latin, “In Memoriam George Hawkins Williams, born October 5, 1818. He gave his soul back to God March 7, 1889.”

The window was created by the Clayton and Bell company of London, a large and prestigious firm, which had many important commissions in churches and cathedrals particularly in England, but also in churches in Canada, Australia and the U.S., beginning in the mid-19th century and continuing until 1993. Their approach, using a limited range of colored glass and ancient painting techniques, contrasts sharply with that of the Tiffany Glass Company, producer of both the St. Anne window to the left of the Williams window and the transom window over the door to the right of the Williams window. Tiffany windows use opalescent or flashed glass, where colors are blended within the glass itself.

George Hawkins Williams lived in Baltimore, not Annapolis, and was never a member of St. Anne’s. His home church was Old St. Paul’s in Baltimore and he is buried in Green Mount Cemetery there. His only connection with St. Anne’s was regular attendance when he was in the state legislature. He was served from 1877 through 1882, first in the House of Delegates and subsequently in the Senate. He was president of the Senate in 1882. He died in 1889, several months after being seriously injured in a railroad accident.

The window was installed some 11 years after his death, in January 1901, without any special service or installation ceremony. It was given by his son, William S.G. Williams, and his daughters—Eleanor, Elizabeth, Rebecca and Charlotte. George Hawkins Williams was a distinguished and successful attorney, and his children, prominent in Baltimore society, were also wealthy, having inherited $500,000 each from their grandfather (their mother’s father) John Sterrett Gittings, who made his fortune in banking and railroads. Williams had two additional sons—George, who lived to adulthood, but died in 1880 and Emault. In 1882, Emault was to be married to Mamie Hazlitt, a girl of whom his father strongly disapproved. His father allegedly got Emault drunk a few days before the planned wedding, coerced Emault to make a deed of trust to his father of his inheritance, convinced him that he had a rare disease, and sent him to Europe in search of a cure. George also sent a courier with him to intercept any letters from Mamie. The courier apparently failed however, and Emault decided to defy his father, returned to Baltimore and within 24 hours married his beloved. George was only aware that his son had returned to Baltimore when he received notice of a suit filed by Emault to set aside the deed. Emault won the case. Father and son were never reconciled. Emault was cut out of George’s will. Needless to say, Emault was not among the donors of the George Hawkins Williams window.

Above the door leading from the narthex into the nave is an arched tympanum, the only mosaic in the church. Installed in 1911, it is a memorial to Miss Anne Whittington and Mrs. Emily Gassaway, given by Mrs. Gassaway’s daughter, Renna Caulk. When first put in place, it was not in its present location but rather above the inside south door, facing into the nave. At that time a walnut panel occupied the space. The mosaic was affixed to the panel. The message on the plaque held by the angel, Pax Vobiscum (Peace be with you), would thus provide comfort to departing congregants, according to the newspaper account at the time. The Tiffany stained-glass window, above the south door today, was installed in 1914, replacing the walnut panel. The mosaic was then moved to its present location.

The tympanum is made of imported mosaic with Venetian gold forming the field. The pieces, about an inch thick, are hand cut and set in an iron frame. The work was made by J and R Lamb Studios of New York. Founded in 1857 and still in business today, J and R Lamb advertises itself as the oldest continuously operating stained-glass facility in the country.

“Annie” Whittington (1833-1910) and Emily Whittington Gassaway (1837-1910) were sisters, both lifelong members of St. Anne’s. Annie never married. In 1857, Emily married Augustus Gassaway (1825-1885), the postmaster of Annapolis, who subsequently served as secretary of the Maryland Senate and as mayor of Annapolis. Emily and Augustus had only one child, Renna, who married J.O. Caulk, of Baltimore, a tobacco wholesaler and maker of fine cigars. The Caulks were members of St. Paul’s in Baltimore, where Renna also left a bequest for a memorial for her husband and herself. A few days before Emily died, a brief note in the Evening Capital mentioned that she was quite ill, and said, “She is one of the best and noblest women in Annapolis, and her large circle of friends hope for her recovery.”