Happy St. Patrick's Day! #OnThisDay we're sharing a bit of history about the Baltimore church named for the patron saint of Ireland. In 1847, Father James N. Dolan (1814-1870), then the pastor of St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Fell's Point, borrowed $8,000 from a Protestant friend and purchased a substantial tract of land in what then was Baltimore County. This would be the site for what Father Dolan named "The Orphans' Home of Baltimore." At the time, Father Dolan was caring for a large number of children who had been orphaned when their parents, in flight from the Irish Potato Famine, died soon after their arrival in Baltimore. The Orphans' Home closed in the 1870s; a large portion of its site today is the campus of the Notre Dame of Maryland University on North Charles Street. Image: St. Patrick's Church, lithograph printed in colors by E. Sachse & Co., circa 1855. Maryland Center for History and Culture, H. Furlong Baldwin Library, Print Collection. #MarylandHistory #MDHis...