Curtis Creek’s Wilderness Church

Presbyterian Meeting House was the First Church in Brooklyn-Curtis Bay

Motivated by dissatisfaction with local church leaders and the great distance between their homes and the only Protestant church, residents of South Patapsco asked the Presbyterian Church of England for permission to start their own house of worship in the spring of 1714. A year later the Presbyterian Church at Patapsco was formed, making it the first church in the swampy, wilderness area called South Patapsco, which later became Brooklyn and Curtis Bay.

Parishioners from the South Patapsco region of ther Province of Maryland congregated at St. Paul’s Parish near present day Dundalk in the late 1600s and 1700s. The illustration above of Trinity Church in Southport, Conn., is representative of the 18th century parishes that were erected in colonial America. (Illustration by Rev. Edmund Guilbert, D.D.)

Members of the congregation from the south side of the Patapsco River also lobbied church power brokers for a minister to tend the flock. After nearly a year — exceedingly fast by 18th century standards — the church granted the group’s request in the fall of 1715 and the first recorded church of any denomination rose in South Patapsco on the shores of Curtis Creek.

Protestant settlers in the area had few choices when it came to attending services in the early 1700s, and when they did attend, it was usually an all-day affair. St. Paul’s Parish, also known as the “Patapsco Parish,” was formed in Baltimore County by the Maryland General Assembly. It was the first of 30 state-sponsored Protestant churches in the region. The St. Paul’s meeting house was created in Patapsco Neck at the head of Colgate Creek near present-day Dundalk.

THE PATH TO CHURCH: The trip to St. Paul’s Parish at the head of Colgate Creek from South Patapsco would have been long and difficult in bad weather. A boat ride would have been more convenient, but not all farmers in the early 18th century would have had such resources. The path illustrated here was a likely path for people to get to once-a-week services on foot or horseback. (Note: 1882 map is illustrative and not meant to be historically accurate. When the Presbyterian Church at Patapsco was formed in 1715 Baltimore Town had not been created and there were few roads).

As one of the few churches in the region, it became popular and some parishioners would travel 40 to 50 miles to attend services there. South Patapsco farmers didn’t travel as far as others, and the trip was not always pleasant. It was a thirteen-mile, one-way journey on foot or horseback to get there. Then, another thirteen-mile journey awaited them on return. For those with better means, a boat ride across the wide Patapsco River was faster and more efficient, and would be followed by a long walk to get to services. Regardless of the mode of transport, it could be daunting. South Patapsco was a swampy, hilly area and even the slightest rain could turn the soft dirt roads into an impassable, muddy mess.

Colonial settlers had been farming in South Patapsco since the mid-1600s and many of those Puritans had been attending St. Paul’s since it was built in 1692. But in 1714, parishioners grew disenchanted with St. Paul’s leadership. In what read like a 16th century scandal sheet, parishioners complained that the minister at St. Paul’s Parish, Rev. William Tibbs, was responsible for the “wickedness” of the people in the neighborhood. In a petition brought to the church vestry by congregation leaders, Tibbs was charged with setting a bad example as minister and asserted he “was a very weak man.” Calling him “a common drunk,” they said he was guilty of “shameful acts” like refusing to go to houses to baptize sick children without pay, demanding money for the administration of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper in private houses, and “being drunk” immediately after the celebration of the Communion. In depositions before the vestry, witnesses said he demanded twenty shillings — ten for his visit and another ten for his “medicine” — to administer Communion at the home of wealthy landowner Richard Colegate for his sick mother-in-law. Tibbs became so drunk during the visit that Colegate sent two servants to shepherd him home “as he could not walk tither.”

The church recognized it had a congregational revolt on its hands, so it censured Tibbs for his boorish behavior, admonished him to “change his life and reconcile himself to his people with all speed,” and threatened to bring him before the governor if he did not change his ways. The ordeal may have had the desired effect on Tibbs; there was no record of the vinous reverend ever being ousted from his position or the church.

Colonial Marylanders had few options when attending church services. When the Baltimore County vestry approved a new church on Curtis Creek in 1715 services were held in the house of John Frizell, likely in a setting similar to what is depected above. (Creative Commons)

But the vestry seemed willing to appease its offended flock on the south side of the Patapsco River. Shortly after the incident, the Presbyterian Church at Patapsco was established in the home of John Frizell at the head of Curtis Creek, which was built in August 1715. Bernard C. Steiner, who in 1917 researched the Bishop of London’s Fulham Palace manuscripts, where affairs of the church were recorded, speculated that the new church likely arose out of the Tibbs incident.

Keeping the congregation happy was important, but the church may have overcompensated in its zeal to mollify churchgoers. The Presbyterian congregation in Baltimore County did, after all, grant the South Patapsco request to stand up a new meeting house. Then it found the congregation a minister in Rev. Hugh Conn, an Irishman educated at the University of Glasgow, who had answered the call to be a pioneer minister to colonists in the New World. Conn was conducting ad-hoc services in private homes in Baltimore County when the church dispatched him to Curtis Creek in September 1715; he was installed as pastor a month later.

There was no record of where Conn lived while he tended his small South Patapsco flock, but after four years, the congregation did not grow as anticipated. By September 1719, the church released him from his duties there “because of the paucity of his flock.” A few months later, Conn became pastor in the fast-growing community of Bladensburg, Maryland where he ministered for 37 more years.

Meanwhile, churchgoers in South Patapsco would be left without a church for another 150 years. Then, in 1868 the Brooklyn Methodist and Protestant Church formed and became the first church in the region with a dedicated building. It is possible that other meeting houses for other denominations existed in what would become Brooklyn and Curtis Bay during the in-between, but no written record of that has been uncovered.

This is one of many stories to be published in the upcoming book, “Brooklyn Rising,” scheduled for release in 2021.