Hello and welcome to American Catholic History, brought to you by the support of listeners like you.

If you like this podcast and would like to support our work, please visit American Catholic History.org

slash support. I'm Noelle Heister Crowe. And I'm Tom Crow. Today we're talking about the first

woman's religious community in the United States, the Carmel of Port Tobacco, Maryland.

They certainly were the first because while they came over and established their caramel

within a short time after such a thing became legal in the United States. Much earlier, and they would have been breaking the law.

Now, before we get started, one thing right off the bat, the name, Port Tobacco.

It's an odd name for a place where caramelates put down roots.

It does sound odd, but let's clear that up with some history.

First, yes, it does have reference to tobacco being the dominant cash crop in the region

when the town became prominent.

Yes, and shortly after the arrival of the English Catholic settlers in the 1630s,

port tobacco grew to be the second largest city in the colony.

It was, at the time, a port city on the Potomac River. And the

Potomac is very wide at this point, a few miles wide as it nears to Chesapeake Bay.

But the name didn't just come from the fact that it was an important port city, and the

major product that went through it was tobacco. There was also the happy accident that one of the native tribes in the region was known as the

Potapoko and the river that flowed into the Potomac at the point where the town stood was named

for this tribe.

Or maybe the tribe was named for the river.

Either way, between Potapoko being a prominent name in the region, the town being a port

city, and the main crop being tobacco, Port Tobacco it was. Nowadays, of course, the city is

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