James McSherry Coale

The building of the second St. Peter’s Church (dedicated in 1871, accidentally burned in 2004) was made possible by the generosity of the son of Richard and Catharine McSherry Coale who had donated the land and funding for our first church, dedicated in September 1823.  As our parish outgrew the original stone chapel, James McSherry Coale, son of Richard and Catharine, helped see to construction of a new brick church next to it.


James was born in Libertytown on January 19, 1805, educated at Mount Saint Mary’s in Emmitsburg, and later studied law under Richard Potts of Frederick.  He was an Elector in the Electoral College for the 1836 and 1840 Presidential elections.  As noted in another Key Moment it was James, who had inherited the land where our church sits, who followed through in November 1867 on his late father’s intention that the 2 acres be transferred to the Catholic Church.  The “better late than never” transfer facilitated efforts to construct the larger church that the growing parish needed. 

James further helped make the second church possible through his financial contributions.  In the process, he helped persuade the Archdiocese to increase the frequency with which a priest would visit Libertytown.  This is something James had appealed for over multiple years, assuring the Archbishop that means for a resident priest’s support could be raised in Libertytown.  In an April 1868 letter to Archbishop Spalding about the proposed new church building, James noted “it is a pretty big undertaking + I presume I will have to contribute liberally towards it, but when finished I hope it will be a credit to the Archdiocese, + that you will provide either a resident priest as was formerly contemplated, or more frequent attendance than is now given to that place.”[1] In his January 17, 1871 letter to the Archbishop, he expressed thanks that pastoral attendance at least twice a month would be provided, noting that with “…this arrangement and the Dedication of the new Church I trust that a new and happy era will be inaugurated.”[2]  James also arranged for the new church and steeple to be insured, paying the first year’s premium himself.  133 years later we were certainly thankful that detail had not been overlooked! [3]

J.M. Coale was already known as someone who could make things happen.   Fifteen years after it had started, the competition between the Baltimore & Ohio (B&O) Railroad and the Chesapeake & Ohio (C&O) Canal to be the first to reach Cumberland was over once the railroad got there first.  They had both broken ground on the 4th of July 1828 and each started building west…the B&O from Baltimore and the Canal from Washington.  By the summer of 1843, the Canal was fifty miles short with a series of unconnected segments ahead.  Canal stockholders fired the current president of the C&O company at a meeting in Frederick and named James McSherry Coale as the new head on August 17, 1843.  He was able to negotiate a deal with the B&O to transport western Maryland coal by rail from Cumberland fifty miles to canal boats at Dam Number 6, the western terminus of the completed canal.  Thus, the company was able to earn some revenue, service some of its debt, and complete construction through to Cumberland.  In 1850 a marble obelisk was erected where Wisconsin Avenue crosses the canal in Georgetown in Washington, D.C. to mark the successful completion of the C&O Canal to Cumberland, acknowledging the efforts of company president James M. Coale and the other men who achieved this very significant engineering feat. 

Coale also was elected to the Maryland legislature, serving from 1852 to 1862 during the tumultuous period leading into the Civil War, including the debate over whether Maryland would secede from the Union as the states to the south had done.  He notably wrote letters to Abraham Lincoln protesting the imprisonment of southern-leaning members of the Maryland legislature during that period.  He was appointed a Brigadier General in the Maryland Militia (9th Brigade).  Never married, he was noted to be one of the wealthiest men in Maryland and a man of great charity.


Interestingly, James McSherry Coale is also known in the art world, as the young subject of a portrait painted by Frederick Kemmelmeyer, a former Hessian soldier who became an itinerant artist whose works in both oil and pastels span from 1805 to 1816.  He painted James McSherry Coale when he was 8 years old in Libertytown in 1811.  The portrait, signed by Kemmelmeyer, is noteworthy because Coale was the only Kemmelmeyer portrait subject for whom another image is known.  The engraving of Coale as an adult was in the 1854 book Portraits of Eminent Americans Now Living by John Livingston.

Coale died on February 22nd, 1882 and is buried in St. Peter’s Cemetery.





[1] 33L7 , James M. Coale to Martin Spalding, 23 April 3, 1868, Abp Spalding Papers, Archives of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, Associated Archives at St. Mary’s Seminary & University, Baltimore, MD.

[2] 36A-E4 , James M. Coale to Martin Spalding, January 17, 1871, Abp Spalding Papers, Archives of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, Associated Archives at St. Mary’s Seminary & University, Baltimore, MD.

[3] Ibid.




Other Key Moments in St Peter's History

Monsignor John A. Dietzenbach

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John Augustine Dietzenbach was born on December 9, 1951 at West Union, Iowa, the second of six children. He grew up on a family farm near Fort Atkinson, Iowa and attended St. Luke Church and school in St. Lucas, Iowa. After graduating from Luther College in Decorah, Iowa in 1974 with a BA double major in Business Administration and Philosophy, he attended St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Roland Park, Baltimore, MD. He graduated with a Masters of Divinity in Theology from there in December of 1978 and during his last year in the seminary, he sought incardination (the official acceptance by one diocese of a clergyman from another diocese) with the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Fr. John was assigned to All Saints Parish on Liberty Road in January 1979, where he remained through his deaconate ordination on May 24, 1980 and his ordination to the priesthood on November 29, 1980. In the summer of 1981 he was assigned to St. Elizabeth Parish on Baltimore Street where he remained for 5 ye
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St. Peter’s Bicentennial

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The most recent key moment in St. Peter’s history is the commemoration of the parish’s bicentennial. 2021 marked 200 years since the establishment of the parish and the beginning of construction of our first church building, a stone chapel, on land donated by the Coale family. In September 1823, the newly completed first church was consecrated by Archbishop Ambrose Maréchal of Baltimore. To commemorate this milestone, a Bicentennial Committee consisting of 20 parishioners planned a number of activities beginning in September 2022 and culminating in Fall 2023. In order to carry out these plans without impacting the parish’s normal operating budget, Bicentennial fundraising efforts were undertaken. Early on, a logo was developed showcasing the current church with the extant portion of the second church prominently featured. This logo was used in the development of a Bicentennial ornament, which has been sold over the past year. A ticketed Bicentennial Ball dinner dance is planned f
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Deacons John Martin, Jerry Jennings and Michael Dvorak

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“I’ve come to serve.” That was the response called out by John Martin in May 2009 and by Jerry Jennings and Michael Dvorak in May 2011 as each was called forward from the pews of Baltimore’s Cathedral of Mary Our Queen to be ordained as deacons by then-Archbishop (now Cardinal) O’Brien. When asked today to talk about their roles as deacons assigned to St. Peter’s, they each summarize by saying “I’m here to serve.” Both Deacon John and Deacon Jerry have served in our military, and Deacon Mike works for the Employee Assistance Program for the Department of Defense.  Deacon John was in the U.S. Air Force and Air Force Reserves, while Deacon Jerry is a retired U.S. Army Colonel.  All are husbands and fathers, and Deacons John and Jerry are grandfathers. They each talk about how blessed they are to serve in our parish which values its deacons and allows them to exercise their full diaconal ministry through the liturgy, sacraments, preaching and outreach ministries.  Over the years, our d
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Fr. Martin W. Flahavan

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 Fr. Flahavan was a man of varied talents.  One example was a Marian Children’s Missal with Martin Flahavan featured in photos celebrating Mass.  This Missal, published by the School Sisters of Notre Dame, was designed to help children prepare for their First Communion, and was widely purchased throughout the country by parents for their children in the 1950’s and 60’s. In all the parishes he was assigned to, he was perpetually active doing something to advance the mission of the Catholic Church.   At St. Peter’s, where he was assigned from 1961 to 1965, he constructed a basketball court, developed the largest Altar Boy Society in the history of St. Peter’s, revived the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary, organized an Usher Society, began high  school and adult discussion groups in cooperation with the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (known to many of us as CCD), made major maintenance improvements to the church and (old) rectory, renovated the parish hall, and developed a new
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Religious Educators of our Children Over the Years

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While the religious education of our children has always been the responsibility of their parents (and extended family), there is documented evidence that the Jesuits who visited Libertytown in early years of the Parish, and later the diocesan pastors, provided specific instruction to our young, prior to their receiving their First Holy Communion and Confirmation. Archive materials from the School Sisters of Notre Dame, however; provide us with our earliest window into the beginnings of formal religious education at St. Peter’s. From these records we learn that the religious women from that Order, beginning with Sr. Theophora Foley and Sr. Fidelis de Katow, moved into their new convent on October 25, 1892. This convent was adjacent to the school where they would be teaching – Notre Dame Academy (now occupied by the Parish office staff). Records don’t indicate how many sisters were teaching at the school at one time, but in 1935, the number of religious in the community were reduced t
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Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton

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Catholics in Libertytown were blessed to interact with some of the major pillars of early Catholicism in the United States. For example, the first US bishop, John Carroll, was involved in the initial discussions about the possibility of a church in Liberty. Fr. John Dubois, who would go on to become Bishop of New York had ministered to Catholics here, as did Fr. John McElroy who completed our first church and later founded Boston College. Very notably, they also interacted with the first American born saint! Some eight decades before St. Peter’s would open the Notre Dame Academy, and a decade before our first church building even got underway, a young lady from Libertytown would benefit from the fact that the first free Catholic school for female education staffed by religious women in the U.S. opened here in her county. “Received the sum of twenty five dollars for three months advance payment for the board + tuition of Miss Sarah Coale,” reads a September 1811 receipt signed by Mo
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Father John McElroy, S. J.

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The priest who saw to the completion of the first St. Peter’s church was one very busy Jesuit. He was also responsible for building other local Catholic churches and schools before moving onto important roles from Mexico to Massachusetts. John McElroy came to the US from his native Ireland as a young man in 1803. He was ordained a priest in 1817 at the age of thirty-five. He was sent to Frederick in 1822 to aid the ailing pastor of St John the Evangelist Church, Fr. Francis Maleve, S.J. the successor to Fr. John Dubois, S.S. After arriving, Fr. McElroy, S.J. stayed with Fr. Maleve until he passed away a few days later, on Oct 3, 1822. Fr. McElroy was subsequently named pastor of St. John the Evangelist Church. St. Peter’s was a mission of St. John’s, as was St. Joseph’s on Carrollton Manor. While here, Fr. McElroy continued to build the church in our community…both figuratively & literally. Fr. McElroy’s journal notes that he made his first visit to Liberty on Nov. 12, 1822, and
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Consecration of St. Peter’s First Church

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Jesuit records reflect that the building of St. Peter’s first church was initially overseen by the Jesuit pastor of Frederick, Fr. Maleve. When Fr. Maleve died in October 1822, his successor, Fr. John McElroy, S.J. stepped in to see the completion of Liberty’s Catholic church. St. Peter’s was consecrated on September 28, 1823, as recorded in the diaries of both Archbishop Maréchal and Fr. McElroy: “I set out for Liberty town and got out at Mr. Coales’s, an earnest and zealous man, and owner of all the land about the town. He built a fine stone chapel and intends to give land for a graveyard, and very likely, a presbytery, garden and pasture: great prospect for an ecclesiastical establishment." - Arch Bishop Maréchal diary entry September 26, 1823 [i] “On the 28th I blessed the church. A great crowd from the neighborhood, and singers from Frederick and a fortepiano. Mass with the deacon and sub-deacon. I spoke twice, first on dedication of the church and secondly on confirmat
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Dedication of the Third Church

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“Woo-hoo!” shouted an excited parishioner, breaking the hush a few seconds after Msgr. Dietzenbach opened the doors. Perhaps a bit more vocal than the consecration 200 years ago of our first church, but no doubt very similar in sentiment to the consecration of our first church. Countless hours, lots of energy and significant effort went into making sure this most recent dedication was as flawless as possible. It was no small undertaking to arrange for a dedication liturgy involving a Cardinal, an Archbishop, 2 Bishops, more than 40 priests and deacons and a congregation numbering 800. Of interest, the youngest parishioner in attendance was Ava Folger, who was only 13 days old on the 7th of September and our most senior parishioner to witness the Dedication was Anne Morrissey, 104 years of age at the time. Two hundred years ago, in 1823, Fr. McElroy’s diary contained the following specifics concerning the procession preceding the liturgy of the consecration of the first church: “… s
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