Mount Carmel Monastery of Port Tobacco, Maryland, was originally founded in 1790 as a cloister for Discalced Carmelite nuns. After four decades of service, the eight or so buildings were deteriorating rapidly and Archbishop James Whitfield moved the twenty-four nuns to a location in Baltimore. The nuns switched from farming to running a school.
In 1933, a visit to the remaining dilapidated buildings inspired an effort to restore the first convent of religious women founded in the fledgling United States of America. Two buildings and the cemetery were all that remained. In 1954, the Chapel of Our Lady of Mount Carmel was built. Twelve years later they built Pilgrim Hall to accommodate visitors. The hall was expanded in 2006 with a gift shop and meeting rooms. In 1976, a group of nuns returned to the Monastery and have prayed for the visitors and the rest of the Archdiocese ever since.
In 2025, the relics of
Saint Therese of Lisieux began a nation-wide tour of the United States. One stop was the Carmel of Port Tobacco. We went to the monastery Sunday, November 23, for Mass and to venerate the relics. We arrived about 7:20 a.m., just as they were opening the chapel so early visitors could get some prayer time in with Saint Therese before the 8 a.m. Mass.
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| A line out the door! |
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| Chapel Sanctuary |
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| My wife praying by Saint Therese |
This Carmel has a particular devotion to Saint Joseph, foster-father of Jesus. They have beautiful statue of him holding the two turtledoves, the price that poor people offered up for their first-born sons at the temple in Jerusalem.
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| Saint Joseph |
The morning was cold and foggy but didn't not dampen our spirits or chill our nerves. We were put off by the crowd in the gift shop and didn't buy anything, even though they did have Pope Leo XIV mugs!
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| Pilgrim Hall and gift shop |
"The Old Monastery" is made up of the two buildings that survived from the eighteenth century. They are connected now and make a small museum to the history of the monastery.
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| The Old Monastery |
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| Inside of the Old Monastery |
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| Saint Therese |
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| Wash basin and trunk |
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| Chapel bell from a Madrid monastery donated to the nuns |
Living conditions at the Monastery, on a rise above the valley of Port Tobacco, must have been difficult but rewarding.
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| Recreation of the nuns' furnishings |
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| One of the founding nuns, Mother Clare Joseph Dickinson |
On the side of the Pilgrim Hall is another statue of Saint Joseph.
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| 2006 cornerstone and Saint Joseph |
The grounds are small, only a few acres (all the archdiocese could buy back in the 1900s), so everyone had to park at the nearby
College of Southern Maryland lot and take a donated bus back and forth. It was a great morning for us.
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| Heading back from a bit of Heaven |
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