The History of Emmanuel Church

The Act of 1692

In 1692, the Maryland state legislature divided the province of Maryland into thirty parishes and made provision for the support of the ministers in those parishes.  In 1942, 250 years later, the Episcopal Church in Maryland celebrated the Sestercentennial of the establishment of those thirty parishes with a series of local events in all three dioceses of Maryland.  The program below contains the schedule of those events, as well as a thumbnail summary of those thirty first parishes.  Included are the thumbnails of the two parishes from whose territory was carved our own Chester Parish in 1765, 73 years later:  Shrewsbury and St. Paul’s Kent.