Saints Peter and Paul, Easton

In 1675, the first church dedicated to Catholic worship was erected in what is now the Diocese of Wilmington. Peter Sayer, a colonist whose Fr. William arrived in Maryland with the Ark and the Dove, built the brick structure with a semi-circular apse in Wye Town, near present day Easton. Jesuit Father Nicholas Gulick served as its resident pastor. Wye Chapel served as a hub from which Father Gulick and other priests would minister to Catholics spread across the Eastern Shore. In 1690, the chapel was boarded up as King William declared Maryland to be a royal colony, outlawing the free practice of the Catholic faith. This did not step he Jesuits from ministering to the Catholic families in the area, however. In 1756, Father James Beadnall, S.J. was arrested for Officiating Mass in the homes of David Jones of Easton Landing and Thomas Browning of Island Creek Neck. Eventually, the case was dropped. On March 18, 1765, Father Joseph Mosley, S.J. was assigned from Old Bohemia to start a new mission and bought the plot of land from Parson Miller and his wife, and Sara Millington, which became Saint Joseph in Cordova. For the next 22 years Fr. Mosely served Talbot, Queen Anne, Kent, Caroline, and Dorchester Counties in Maryland, and Kent and Sussex Counties in Delaware from St. Joseph.

By 1830, the Jesuit pastor of St. Joseph wrote of the possibility of starting a church in Easton. And in 1850, he rented a hall in Easton and furnished it for Mass. In the early 1860s, Baltimore Archbishop John Martin Spalding sent the Redemptorists from Annapolis to Easton. In December of 1866, a church was started in Easton the church, dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul, was completed in 1868. The Most Reverend Thomas A. Becker, first bishop of Wilmington, set up a committee of Easton residents to make arrangements for a resident priest at Easton, and in September of 1878 newly ordained Fr. Edward L. Brady was appointed as Pastor. Saints Peter and Paul church was rebuilt in 1889.

Many of today's Catholic Churches of the Eastern Shore grew out of Saints Peter and Paul or were served by its priests. In 1884, the pastor of Easton started the first regular church services in Secretary, Maryland at Sherman's Institute; this would become Our Lady of Good Counsel. In the 1890s, St. Mary Refuge of Sinners in Cambridge was built and overseen by Easton's pastor. In 1898, St. Joseph in Cordova became a mission of Saints Peter and Paul.

The parish opened its elementary school in 1955 and its high school in 1958. With a growing catholic population in Saint Michaels, Saint Michael Church was built in 1969. Before that, Masses had been said at Saint Michaels Firehouse and at Christ Episcopal Church.

In the early 1990s, the elementary school was doubled in size and a new high school building was erected. In 1998, property was secured for a new church in Easton. Ground was broken for the new Saints Peter and Paul Church in June 2003, with its dedication on November 20, 2005.