McNeal family papers

Joshua Vansant McNeal, 1846-1917

Joshua Vansant McNeal was born on June 11, 1846, to James McNeal and Sarah Jane Golibard. Joshua was educated in Baltimore public schools and attended Loyola College from 1860 to 1862. He was employed in the fire and marine insurance business until 1872 when he accepted a job with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad as a clerk. He steadily progressed up the ranks of the company, being elected fourth Vice President and Treasurer in 1904. Joshua was a patron of the musical arts and sponsored several young promising musicians. He married May Preston in 1873 and the couple had eight children, four of whom lived into adulthood: Mark J. McNeal, Stella McNeal, J. Preston W. McNeal and Marie McNeal Tettoni. May Preston McNeal died in 1913. Joshua Vansant McNeal died in 1917.

Mark Joseph McNeal, 1874-1935

Mark Joseph McNeal was born in 1874 to Joshua Vansant McNeal and May Preston McNeal. He attended Georgetown University prior to seminary. He was a member of the Maryland – New York Province of the Society of Jesus, traveling to Japan in the 1890s to establish the Catholic University in Tokyo and the novitiate in Manila, Philippines. Mark founded the University bulletin “Sun Rise” and was a regular and lengthy correspondent with his brother J. Preston W. McNeal and his sisters, Stella McNeal and Marie McNeal Tettoni. Mark was in Tokyo during the 1923 earthquake that destroyed much of the University and he assisted in its reconstruction. He died in Manila in 1935 following a lengthy illness.