New book fills in gaps of history of Mount St. Mary’s

For a university founded in 1808, Emmitsburg’s Mount St. Mary’s University has surprisingly few books telling its story. That bothered alumnus John Singleton, Class of 1986, enough that he wrote one himself.

While visiting his son’s school, the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, Singleton was struck by the hundreds of books about the university available in the campus bookstore. At Mount St. Mary’s, he found far fewer.

“The Mount’s history is much better,” said Singleton, a parishioner of St. John the Evangelist in Severna Park. “It is much more entwined with America’s founding fathers and religious leaders.”

Singleton’s self-published coffee-table book, “The Meaning of Mount St. Mary’s,” tells that story through what he calls the Mount’s “12 heroes.” Each chapter focuses on a significant figure in the university’s history, from founder Father John Dubois to Olympic gold medalist Peter Rono and Blessed Stanley Rother, the first American-born martyr and a graduate of Mount St. Mary’s Seminary. 

“Mount St. Mary’s is a national treasure. Its founding in 1808 is directly tied to the founding of the United States in 1776,” Singleton said. “The Mount’s founder, Father John Dubois, was mentored by Patrick Henry and James Monroe on religious liberty and encouraged him to become its utmost practitioner.”

Born in Italy, Singleton moved with his family to Maryland as a child and attended Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Washington. After graduating from Our Lady of Good Counsel High School in Olney in 1982, he enrolled in the engineering program at the University of Maryland, College Park, but left after one semester.

“The Blessed Mother was watching over me, guiding me the whole time,” Singleton said of his decision to transfer to Mount St. Mary’s, a school he knew little about other than that a few friends attended.

“I just showed up, worked out a financial plan, loans. I got there and graduated. That’s how it worked,” he said. He earned a MBA from the school in 1987.

A business major, Singleton said his liberal arts classes introduced him to a wide range of “beautiful and fun” subjects, including writing.

He developed a habit of writing down people’s stories, along with his own reflections. While building a career in business, he also freelanced for a community newspaper in Severna Park, where he and his family live.

“They sharpened me up for writing something a little bigger,” Singleton said of his freelance work.

He began writing the book in earnest during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I am not an academic,” he said. “I never thought I would write a book about Mount St. Mary’s one day.”

After receiving permission to reproduce the works of fellow Mount graduate and artist John La Farge, Singleton sought to make the book as visually rich as its history by including numerous historical images.

“I’m deeply grateful for the book John has done,” said Layton Field, vice president for mission and ministry at Mount St. Mary’s. “He has done an excellent job of trying to make the story of the Mount relevant to current students.”

Before Singleton’s book, Field said, the best-known history of the university was the 1911 two-volume work “The Story of the Mountain” by Mary Meline and Father Edward F.X. McSweeny, which “did a remarkable job covering the first 100 years.”

“For 200 years, it has had a very quiet existence, patiently and consistently doing the work of the Church,” Field said of the Mount, which is the second-oldest Catholic university in the country and the second-oldest seminary after St. Mary’s Seminary in Roland Park. “The seminary has been called the ‘cradle of bishops’ as more seminarians go on to become bishops. The impact the Mount has had locally and globally has been quite profound.”

Field and Singleton will teach an online class, “The Meaning of Mount St. Mary’s,” Oct. 13 at 7 p.m.

Singleton pointed to the school’s distinctive origins, recalling the tradition that Father John Dubois, a French émigré priest, discovered a natural grotto on St. Mary’s Mountain, planted a cross there and went on to found Mount St. Mary’s in 1808. 

“Who has this?” Singleton wondered. “It is a second Eden. Father John Dubois stepped into a second Eden in America.” 

His book, he hopes, helps more people become aware of the Mount and its importance to history.

“Now you can learn about it all in one place,” Singleton said.

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