Maryland Mission

Rev. Louis William Dubourg, S.S., (1766-1833), was visiting New York when Elizabeth met him quite providentially about 1806. Dubourg had long desired a congregation of religious women since 1797 to teach girls in Baltimore, Maryland. He, with the concurrence of Bishop John Carroll, invited Elizabeth to Baltimore. The French priests of the Society of Saint Sulpice (Sulpicians) and who were émigrés in Maryland assisted her in forming a plan of life which would be in the best interests of her children. The Sulpicians wished to form a small school for religious education of children.

After her arrival in Maryland, June 16, 1808, Elizabeth spent one year as a school mistress in Baltimore. The Sulpicians envisioned the development of a sisterhood modeled on the Daughters of Charity of Paris (founded 1633), and they actively recruited candidates for the germinal community. Cecilia Maria O'Conway (1788-1865) of Philadelphia was the first to arrive on December 7, 1808. She was followed in 1809 by Mary Ann Butler (1784-1821) of Philadelphia, Susanna Clossey (1785-1823) of New York, Catharine Mullen (1783-1815) of Baltimore, Anna Maria Murphy Burke (c.1787-1812) of Philadelphia, and Rosetta (Rose) Landry White (1784-1841), a widow of Baltimore. Only Elizabeth pronounced vows of chastity and obedience to John Carroll for one year in the lower chapel at Saint Mary's Seminary on Paca Street, March 25, 1809. The Archbishop gave her the title, "Mother Seton." On June 16, 1809, the group of sisters appeared for the first time dressed alike in a black dress, cape and bonnet patterned after the widows weeds of women in Italy whom Elizabeth had encountered there.

Samuel Sutherland Cooper, (1769-1843), a wealthy seminarian and convert, purchased 269 acres of land for an establishment for the sisterhood near Emmitsburg in the countryside of Frederick County, Maryland. Cooper wished to establish an institution for female education and character formation rooted in Christian values and the Catholic faith, as well as services to the elderly, job skill development, and a small manufactory, which would be beneficial to people oppressed by poverty. Cooper had Elizabeth in mind to direct the educational program.