Immaculate Conception, Elkton, MD

The priests from St. Francis Xavier would celebrate Mass at two places: Mount Pleasant, a farm house on Blue Ball Road, three miles north of Elkton, and Wilna Place, the home of Henry Mackall, an attorney. In the 1840s, Wilna Place was rented by Madam Margaret Butler Lyons, a wealthy widow from New York. In time, she purchased an acre of land on the western outskirts of Elkton on what is now Bridge Street, and the Archbishop of Baltimore purchased an additional acre-and-a-quarter to add to the parish property. Mrs. Lyons had enough stones on her farm to build a church, and so, members of the community hauled stones over several winters. The church built of limestone was plaster-dashed on the outside to give the building a smooth appearance, and its walls were two-feet thick. The finished church did not have a bell tower, but it did have a few plain glass windows and discarded pews from a church in Baltimore when it was dedicated in August of 1849.

Around 1867, Catholics of Elkton wrote Baltimore's Archbishop asking for a resident priest. They had to wait for the Diocese of Wilmington to be formed in 1868 when Bishop Becker made Immaculate Conception a separate parish and named a pastor. In the 1870s, a bell tower was added to the church and the rectory was moved closer to the church, on Cathedral Street. The parish continued to grow and soon was too large for the church. In 1886, efforts were made to double the church in size. As part of this project, stained glass windows were added as well as an altar and set of the Stations of the Cross, originally used for forty years at the Cathedral of St. Peter. In 1927, the parish opened its school and a convent to house the Sisters who would teach there.

The parish was entrusted to the care of the Oblates from 1938 to 1946. During World War 2, the basement of the church was turned into an emergency hospital after an explosion at a local ammunition factory. The basement was later used by the Red Cross as a blood bank. After the war, the church was braced with steel beams because the floor was beginning to sag.

With the baby boom, the school became too small for the number of students enrolled, so land was purchased on Bow Street. In July of 1956, the Franciscan Sisters moved into the new convent, and the current school building opened that September. In 1965, the cemetery in Cherry Hill was reopened.

The parish soon faced the problem of either increasing the size of the church on the Bridge Street or building a new church. With little room to expand and the desire for a single campus, ground was broken on September 17, 1972. In November of 1973, Immaculate Conception parish officially moved from Bridge Street, where it had been for 124 years. In the 1970s, the Catholic Youth Organization started in the parish, as well as ministry to Laurelwood Nursing Home. The Parish Outreach began in October of 1983, and is the largest non-government provide of social assistance in the county. In 2002, the convent was remodeled and now serves as the parish offices. In 2014, the parish was returned to the care of the Oblates of Saint Francis de Sales.