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Part of the American
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Elizabeth A. Seton 1774 ~ 1821
Founder and first Superioress of the
Sisters of Charity. Elizabeth Ann Bayley was born in New York
City, the 28th of August, 1774, and was the daughter of Dr.
Richard Bayley, a distinguished American physician. Her mother
died when she was but three years of age. Miss Bayley was
brought up in the doctrines and practices of the Protestant
Episcopal Church, to which her parents belonged.
At the age of twenty she became the wife
of William Seton, a merchant of New York City, whose early life
had been spent in Leghorn. About the beginning of the year 1800,
Mr. Seton's affairs became much embarrassed from the
consequences of the war and other vicissitudes incident to
trade. Mrs. Seton rose to the necessities of the occasion. She
not only cheered him by her unfailing courage, but aided him in
the arrangement of his affairs. Mrs. Seton was the mother of
five children. Her influence was not only confined to her own
family circle, but she sought wherever it was possible to draw
the hearts of others to the consideration of their true welfare.
So zealous was she in this respect that she and another relative
were frequently called the Protestant sisters of charity.
In 1801, Mrs. Seton's father, Dr. Bayley,
died, but although her father had married a second time, Mrs.
Seton was very devoted to him during his entire life. In 1803
Mr. Seton's health became so precarious that they resolved upon
visiting Italy. Owing to many calamities and a form of contagion
and sudden illness among her children, and the extreme kindness
and devotion of the Catholic friends of Mr. and Mrs. Seton, she
was brought under the influence and lived in the atmosphere of
the Roman Catholic Church, and ultimately she became a convert
to this faith.
While away she was in constant
correspondence with Father Cheverus, and owing to the counsel
and advice of Bishop Carroll she ultimately, on Ash Wednesday,
March 14, 1805, presented herself for acceptance in the Church
of St, Peter's, New York City. She was received into the church
by Rev. Matthew O'Brien. Mrs. Seton being anxious to exert her
influence for the benefit of her own family and others, opened a
boarding house for young boys who attended school in the city.
May 26, 1806, Mrs. Seton was confirmed by Bishop Carroll in the
presence of her devoted friend, Mr. A. Filicchi, her husband's
former friend of Leghorn. Through Mrs. Seton's zeal she brought
her sister-in-law, Cecelia Seton, into the circle of the Roman
church and her sister Harriet joined Mrs. Seton when she went to
Baltimore, and here she collected around her a band of
religiously inclined young women.
Mrs. Seton decided upon establishing an
order for the care and instruction of poor children. Mr. Cooper,
a convert and student of St Mary's for the priesthood, was
anxious to devote his property to the service of God. The clergy
were consulted on this occasion and the city of Emmitsburg,
Maryland, was fixed upon as full of moral and physical
advantages for a religious community. The title of Mother had
already been gladly given everywhere to Mrs. Seton. One lady
after another came gathering about her in fervor and humility
offering themselves as candidates for the new sisterhood. A
conventual habit was adopted, which was afterwards changed to
that worn by the Sisters of Charity and under the title of
Sisters of St. Joseph, a little band was organized under
temporary rules.
At the end of July, Mother Seton and the
whole of her community, now ten in number, besides her three
daughters and her sister-in-law, removed to a little farmhouse
on their own land, in St. Joseph's Valley, which was to be their
own home. In 1811, measures were taken to procure from France a
copy of the regulations in use among the Daughters of Charity
founded by St. Vincent de Paul, as it was intended that St.
Joseph's community should model itself upon the same basis. All
during this time, Mrs. Seton had continued her devotion as
mother to her own children, and she says, in writing to a
friend, "By the law of the church I so much love, I could never
take an obligation which intertered with my duties to the
children, except I had an independent provision and guardian for
them, which the whole world could not supply to my judgment of a
mother's duty." This and every other difficulty in the adoption
of the rules was, however, at length arranged by the wisdom of
Archbishop Carroll, and in January, 1812, the constitutions of
the community were confirmed by the Archbishop and Superioress
of St. Mary's College in Baltimore. In 1820 Mrs. Seton's health
failed, and her lungs became so seriously affected that medical
attendance give her no hope of recovery. Her death occurred
January 4, 1821.
Women of
America
Source: The Part Taken by Women in
American History, By Mrs. John A. Logan, Published by The Perry-Nalle
Publishing Company, Wilmington, Delaware, 1912.
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