Maryland on Stamps & Covers
Baltimore Cathedral
by Richard D. L. Fulton
The United States Postal Service (USPS) issued a series of 15-cent stamps, featuring examples of early “architecture of enduring beauty, strength and usefulness,” according to the Smithsonian National Postal Museum, on June 4, 1979.
The first set of four different stamps was issued on June 4, 1979, and the first-day-of-issue covers (FDCs) were all canceled at the Kansas City, Missouri, post office. One of the stamps commemorated the architecture of the Baltimore Cathedral, while the remaining three each commemorated the Virginia Rotunda, the Boston State House, and the Philadelphia Exchange.
The cover depicted in conjunction with this article was published by the Fleetwood Corporation out of Cheyenne, Wyoming, and featured an artist rendition of the Baltimore Cathedral, along with several individuals in colonial attire, accompanied by the caption, “The Baltimore Cathedral, America’s first cathedral, is a monument to religious freedom in the New World.”
The Baltimore Cathedral, located at 409 Cathedral Street, was designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe, who had become a renowned architect, and became recognized for his work on portions of the United States Capital, among many other projects, including the designs of the Virginia State Penitentiary, the Bank of Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia Waterworks, and the Baltimore Exchange, according to the Institute of Sacred Architecture’s website.
John Carroll, archbishop of Baltimore, had proposed the idea of a Baltimore cathedral, which became a reality when, upon the recommendation of President Thomas Jefferson, Carroll then engaged Latrobe to design the new church. The cornerstone for the new cathedral was laid under the auspices of the archbishop on July 7, 1806.
According to an article published in the April 21, 1946, edition of The Baltimore Sun, the cathedral was erected on land purchased from John Eager Howard for a little over $20,500, which is equal to about $543,334 in today’s monetary equivalent.
The “granite” used to construct the cathedral was hauled from quarries near Ellicott City on carts drawn by oxen. There are no deposits of granite near Ellicott City. The stone was actually a rock type known as gneiss, according to the Maryland Geological Survey.
The Sun reported that the cathedral had cost $225,000 to build (or about $6,158,947 in today’s monetary equivalent), and that the money was raised primarily by lottery, which had been authorized by the (state) legislature, by the sale of some church-owned land, and by donations.
The newspaper further noted that in 1904 the exterior of the cathedral’s dome and crosses were “covered with $2,000 worth of gold leaf,” or worth about $75,045 in today’s monetary equivalent.
“The only building to rival it (the Baltimore Cathedral) in size, scale, and architectural sophistication was the U.S. Capitol,” according to the Institute of Sacred Architecture’s website.
The Institute of Sacred Architecture further reported that Latrobe had employed “revolutionary” architectural concepts in the design of the cathedral, which had included “the use of masonry vaults to support the main floor, the use of reverse arches in the undercroft to support the rotunda pendentives, large clear glass windows to flood the interior with light, and the construction of a large Delorme wood-framed dome with twenty-four skylights in the field of the dome.”
The cathedral was dedicated on May 31, 1821, thereby establishing the church as having been the first Roman Catholic cathedral in America. The dedication took place a year following Latrobe’s death, and Carroll had already passed away in 1815, only nine years after the cornerstone had been laid. Additional construction, such as the portico, was also performed on the building… up through 1863.
Most recently, the cathedral had undergone a 30-month, $34 million historical restoration, which was completed in 2006, according to a story on the National Public Radio website.
During the East Coast’s 5.8-magnitude earthquake of 2011, it was estimated that the event had inflicted damages of about $5 million to the church.
June 4, 1979, first-day-of-issue cover of the Baltimore Cathedral stamp.
