Mount Carmel Monastery

The Mt. Carmel Monastery is a historic monastery located at Port Tobacco, Charles County, Maryland, United States. It is a two-part frame house, the main block of which was built about 1790 and restored in 1936–37. It consists of a two-story structure with a moderately pitched gable roof. The entire house, devoid of any extraneous ornamentation, reflects the austere lives of the Carmelite nuns who are believed to have used this house as their residence.

Mt. Carmel Monastery
Mt. Carmel Monastery and Chapel, September 2009
Mount Carmel Monastery is located in Maryland
Mount Carmel Monastery
Mount Carmel Monastery is located in the United States
Mount Carmel Monastery
LocationNorth of Port Tobacco on Mt. Carmel Rd., Port Tobacco, Maryland
Coordinates38°33′21″N 77°0′1″W
Built1790
ArchitectPhilip Hubert Frohman
NRHP reference No.73000913[1]
Added to NRHPDecember 4, 1973

The monastery was founded on October 15, 1790, by four English-speaking Carmelite nuns from what is now Belgium, among them Ann Teresa Mathews; three were born in Charles County. The fourth nun was Frances Dickinson from London.[2] Like thousands of English Roman Catholic girls who wanted to be nuns, Dickinson had traveled to Belgium to enter a convent there, as none was left in England. Dickinson would the first prioress until her death in 1830.[2]

In 1831 the nuns then in residence were ordered by the bishop to transfer the convent to Baltimore, Maryland. This property in Port Tobacco was abandoned. In 1933 an organization called the Restorers of Mt. Carmel in Maryland formed to aid in the restoration of the site.[3]

The Mt. Carmel Monastery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.[1]

References
  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. April 15, 2008.
  2. "Dickinson, Frances [name in religion Clare Joseph of the Heart of Jesus] (1755–1830), prioress at Port Tobacco Carmel, Maryland". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/105822. Retrieved 2021-03-01.
  3. J. Richard Rivoire (May 1973). "National Register of Historic Places Registration: Mount Carmel Monastery" (PDF). Maryland Historical Trust. Retrieved 2016-01-01.

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