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He was now rector of Marley Chapel. It is located about nine miles from Baltimore, near the bridge at Marley Creek, which enters into Curtis Creek, a tributary of the Patapsco River. This chapel had been built long before the Revolution. The minister kept his residence within the town limits of Baltimore because it extended his field of helpfulness. The journey to the chapel was made on horseback, and whenever he went to service Alexander and myself followed him on our ponies, through sun, rain, sleet or snow.

On fair-weather days, the church-yard resembled a race-course. The ladies, in gay clothes, had come in carriages. The men, mounted on fine horses and sumptuously arrayed, rode beside them. The carriage wheels rattled. The negro drivers cracked their whips and shouted. The gentlemen loudly admonished the slaves. Over such a tumult the church bell, which was suspended from a tree, rang out to warn the people that the service was about to begin; then a hush fell over the countryside, broken only by the stamping and snorting of the mettlesome horses in the shed, or by the chuckles of the negro boys who tended them.