In March 1634, English settlers first landed on what today is Maryland at St. Clement's Island, the low strip of land across the water. The Catholics among the mostly Protestant settlers sought a new life with religious tolerance from a strict Protestant England, while all sought new social and economic opportunities. Three weeks after landing, Father Andrew White performed the first Catholic Mass in the English colonies, and he wrote of erecting a great cross hewn from a tree and chanting prayers with great emotion of soul. About 140 settlers arrived on the Ark and the smaller Dove, and they named the island for St. Clement, the Catholic patron saint of sailors and seas, possibly in gratitude for their safety after a difficult three-month Atlantic crossing. The settlers remained only briefly because the 400-acre island was too small, then moved downriver to the site that became St. Mary's City, Maryland's first capital.