Mother Seton House
This house, built around 1807, was the home of Saint Elizabeth Bayley Seton, the first American-born canonized saint of the Roman Catholic Church.
Born in New York to a prominent Protestant family, Elizabeth Ann Bayley married William M. Seton in 1794. Widowed in 1803, she became Catholic in 1805.
Father William Dubourg, S.S., President of Saint Mary's College, invited her to establish a school in Baltimore. Elizabeth Seton arrived in Baltimore on June 16, 1808, moved into this house and opened a Catholic elementary school here the following September. The school is regarded as the beginning of the Catholic school system in the United States.
In 1809, Mother Seton founded the first American community of nuns, then known as the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph. In June of the same year the little group moved to Emmitsburg, Maryland
The Sisters, whose motherhouse continued to be at Emmitsburg, formally united in 1850 with the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. Other Sisters of Charity who also trace their origins to Mother Seton founded distinct communities in Cincinnati, Ohio; Convent Station, New Jersey; Greensburg, Pennsylvania; Halifax, Nova Scotia; and New York City.
Restoration work on this home (now a museum) was begun in 1937-1939 and completed in June 1963.
Marker can be reached from North Paca Street, on the left when traveling north.
Courtesy hmdb.org
