St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, August 28, 1774 – January 4, 1821 (used with permission of Daughters of Charity Archives)
Happy 240th birthday to St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, born August 28, 1774!
Category Archives: Elizabeth Ann Seton
July 31 Anniversaries
The Stone House, first home of Mother Seton and her companions (used with permission of Daughters of Charity Provincial Archives)
Yesterday we remembered several important anniversaries. July 31 is the founding date for today’s Province of St. Louise (2011) as well as the former Province of St. Louis (1910). Most importantly, July 31, 1809 is the founding date for the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph’s, established by St. Elizabeth Ann Seton.
Because of the connection with Mother Seton, it was especially wonderful that yesterday a relative of Kitty Mullan, one of the Mother Seton’s earliest companions, stopped by the Provincial Archives. We were able to give her some biographical information and tell her that her ancestor had begun her spiritual life on this very date and had once resided just across the campus. Mother Seton’s Stone House can be seen today from the offices of the Provincial Archives; yesterday was indeed a day to focus on the Stone House and what started there 205 years ago.
The Sisters who began the work in Emmitsburg along with Mother Seton included Cecilia O’Conway, Maria Murphy, Mary Ann Butler, Susan Clossy, Rose White, and Catherine (Kitty) Mullan.
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“A mortuary chapel of gothic”
(All images and passage from the Provincial Annals of 1873 used with permission of Daughters of Charity Provincial Archives)
History is everywhere on the Emmitsburg Campus. The Daughters of Charity (and the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph’s before them) have occupied this site continuously for over 200 years. The sense of history is especially evident in the two beautiful cemetery plots on the campus grounds. The older of the two is known as St. Joseph’s Cemetery. The site for St. Joseph’s Cemetery was selected soon after Mother Seton and her companions arrived in Emmitsburg. Their superior, Fr. William DuBourg, having just given a retreat for the Sisters, invited them to walk the grounds and select a place for a burial ground and to select locations for their own burials. The journal of Mother Rose White records that the Sisters chose a spot under some of the beautiful trees that then adorned the grounds. St. Joseph’s Cemetery still resides on the original site chosen by Mother Seton and her early companions.
The Provincial Annals from October 1873 noted:
If there is a spot on earth that tells of rest when the life work is over, it is the graveyard at St. Joseph’s: a mortuary chapel of gothic would mark the spot where Mother Seton sleeps, awaiting the day wherein shall be rewarded the works that followed her. Around her lie the first companions of her charity, and again, other crosses tell of succeeding generations of the great family, whose privilege it was to have been gathered in, from afar & near, amid the many works of the Sisters of Charity, to rest under the old oaks of the graveyard.
St. Joseph’s Cemetery, ca. 1890s
St. Joseph’s Cemetery, 2014
Seen here are photographs of St. Joseph’s Cemetery. When the earlier picture was taken the Mortuary Chapel, built in the 1840s, did indeed house the remains of Mother Seton. Today her remains reside in the Basilica at the National Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton. You can see in the later picture some of the succeeding generations of Sisters who now rest here.
In 1972, the Daughters of Charity closed the Villa St. Michael, a residential facility in Baltimore which cared for retired Sisters, and transferred the care of Senior Sisters to Emmitsburg. The bodies of all of the Sisters buried at the Villa in Baltimore were transferred to a new plot on the Emmitsburg campus, located east of St. Joseph’s Cemetery. This plot, known as Sacred Heart Cemetery, is where Sisters are buried today.
Sacred Heart Cemetery
Sacred Heart Cemetery
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