St. Francis Xavier First Chapel at Newtowne

Couple weeks ago my friend Steve Raley directed me to the recently-constructed replica of the first chapel at St. Francis Church Cemetary.  Steve told me how his parish had recently built this replica of the 1600's small chapel on its original site adjacent the cemetary.  (This explains why the current St. Francis Xavier Chruch, built in the 1770's, is a little ways away from the cemetary.)  

The St. Francis Xavier website has several good articles and photos on their history (click here).  They also discuss how in 2012 they initiated a study on the location of the original chapel as part of their of their 350th anniversay (click here).  That  study was conducted by the late Scott Lawrence and his company Grave Concerns.   Scott passed away in 2018 (click here.)  Here he is talking about the 2012 study he and his crew conducted at Newtowne:

Thank you Steve! 

Musically, everyone remembers Elvis doing this tune.  However, years before him, the Orioles had a doo wop hit with it in 1953.  Even before them, the song was a country music hit by the song writers' son Darrell Glenn (click here.)  Think I still prefer the Orioles' version and not just because they won again yesterday!