In his diary, under the date of May 27th, 1787, Washington records that he went to the Romish Church at High Mass.
He was then in Philadelphia as a delegate to the Convention to form the Constitution.
One hundred years ago, and both less and more, St. Mary’s was the Catholic church. There High Mass on Sundays was celebrated. Besides, there exists the plan of St. Mary’s in 1787, with the names of the pewholders. Thomas FitzSimons was a member of the Constitutional Convention, and as he was a member of St. Mary’s, he, or George Meade, the grandfather of the late General George Meade, no doubt accompanied Washington, and occupied the pew of George Meade (No. 11), or that of Thomas FitzSimons (No. 12). Both were in front of the altar, or about the end of the middle aisle pews the way the church is now entered.
It was not Washington’s first visit to the church. On October 9th, 1774, he made this record in his diary: “Went to the Presbyterian meeting in the morning and the Romish church in the afternoon.” John Adams was with him. Here is the way Mr. Adams wrote to his wife that evening: “This afternoon, led by curiosity and good company, I strolled away to mother Church, or rather grandmother Church— I mean the Romish chapel. I heard a good, short moral essay upon the duty of parents to their children, founded in justice and charity, to take charge of their interests, temporal and spiritual. This afternoon’s entertainment was to me most awful and affecting; the poor wretches fingering their beads, chanting Latin, not a word of which they understood; their “Pater Nosters” and “Ave Marias;” their holy water; their crossing themselves perpetually; their bowing to the name Jesus whenever they heard it; their bowing and kneeling and genuflecting before the altar.
“The dress of the priest was rich with lace. His pulpit was velvet and gold. The altar-piece was rich, little images and crucifixes about, wax candles lighted up. But how shall I describe the picture of our Savior, in a frame of marble over the altar, at full length upon the cross in the agonies, and blood dripping and streaming from His wounds! The music, consisting of an organ and a choir of singers, went all the afternoon except sermon time, and the assembly chanted most sweetly and exquisitely. Here is everything which can lay hold of the eye, ear and imagination— everything which can charm and bewitch the simple and ignorant. I wonder how Luther ever broke the spell.”
[Page 45 of “Familiar Letters of John Adams to his wife Abigail, during the Revolution.” By Charles Francis Adams. New York: 1876.