A Catholic Mass, the first in English America, was celebrated on the island on March 25, 1634, a day of beginnings that was both the first day of the year on the old Julian calendar and the Feast of the Annunciation. Catholics were determined to practice their religion as they planted their new Maryland Colony after leaving an England where Catholics were persecuted and a Europe ravaged by bloody religious wars. In 1934, people gathered there on Maryland's 300th birthday to remember the first settlers and their quest for religious toleration, and a 40-foot cross constructed from 50-gallon oil barrels filled with cement and a plywood frame covered with stucco has been a landmark ever since.