Maryland on Stamps
Richard D. L. Fulton
Baltimore’s Inner Harbor: 1989
The United States Postal Service (USPS) issued a 27-cent postal card commemorating the 200th Anniversary of the founding of Mount St. Mary’s University (MSMU) on April 26, 2008.
The postal cards were appropriately postmarked in Emmitsburg.
The postal card featured the depiction of the Terrace on the grounds of the university, with a background of fall foliage on the side of Mount Saint Mary’s Mountain. The Terrace is one of the oldest buildings on the campus and houses a significant portion of the student body.
Postal cards differ from postcards. Postal cards are printed by the USPS, including the depiction of a stamp, and are issued to be used as mail or as a souvenir of the issuance of the stamp represented. Postcards are privately printed, usually depicting places of interest, and to which a stamp has to be added by the purchaser, in order for the card to be sent within the mail system.
The first Catholic “settlement” ancestral to the founding of MSMU was established by William Elder, Sr., when he moved his home in the mid-1700s near the future site of MSMU, where he was then joined by his followers. Elder named the section of Catoctin Mountain upon which he had settled as Mount Saint Mary’s Mountain.
Catholic services were held in his home, beginning in the 1730s or 1740s, because it was illegal in Maryland at that time for Catholics to build churches, and they were forbidden to worship in public.
As things calmed down in Maryland, and Catholics began to resume their civil rights, another uprising—the French Revolution—would find Catholics persecuted once again, causing many to flee France in order to seek refuge from the efforts of the French revolutionaries to purge their country of all Christians, an effort known as the French “dechristianization.”
One of the Catholic refugees was Father John DuBois, who, having successfully disguised himself, fled France “because of threats of death from leaders of the Revolution,” according to Our French Connection, published in 2007 by the Archdiocese of New York.
DuBois was apparently destined to establish a Catholic center of education at Mount St. Mary’s when, “On a dark night in Emmitsburg, the immigrant priest stumbled into a mountain cave and experienced a Marian epiphany. Inspired to start Mount St. Mary’s, Dubois followed in the footsteps of European hill towns where soaring monasteries and Marian apparitions became engines of lasting inspiration,” according to the catholicexchange.com.
On September 24, 1808, DuBois acquired 24.64 acres at the foot of Mount Saint Mary’s Mountain, which would become the site of MSMU.
Also, in 1808, DuBois opened a children’s boarding school, and subsequently, the Society of Saint Sulpice transferred all the seminarians to Emmitsburg. A church, Saint Mary’s on the Hill, had already been completed in 1807. Thus, 1808 is considered the founding date of MSMU.
In 1812, Father Simon Bruté joined DuBois as a teacher and as pastor at Mount St. Mary’s, and served as a spiritual director to the future-saint, Elizabeth Ann Seton (who had already arrived in 1805 and established the first Catholic girls’ school in the country, and further founded the order of the Sisters of Charity). In 1815, Bruté was then appointed as being the first president of the university.
From the humble beginnings, the college began to grow: DuBois Hall was erected in 1824; Saint Anthony’s Lake was created in 1829; Doric Hall/Bruté Hall was constructed in 1843; Flynn Hall was dedicated in 1903; Pangborn Hall was dedicated in 1955; the college library was established in 1955; and Cogen Student Union was established in 1961.
Co-ed Science Hall was established in 1964; Pangborn Campanile was dedicated in 1965; Tower dormitories were opened in 1979; Knott Athletic Recreational Convocational Complex was established in 1987; Knott Auditorium was opened in 1994; and McGowan Center was opened in 2003.
All of the preceding information is in reference to Mount St. Mary’s College. The college did not receive university status until 2004.
Today, MSMU sits upon 1,400 acres of rural land, and the university employs 114 full-time faculty members, teaching curriculum across 49 majors.
The growth of the university steadily continues on, and additional post-college facilities have been added.
In spring 2025, Mount St. Mary’s student enrollment totaled 2,017 undergraduates, graduates, and seminary students, according to Donna Klinger, executive director of Communications at Mount St. Mary’s University.
