Opened in 1820, the Ursuline Convent Academy was the first Roman Catholic school for girls in Massachusetts. The convent was established by Reverend John Lefebre de Cheverus and two Irish Ursuline Sisters, Mary Joseph and Magdalene (Mary and Catherine Ryan) in 1817. Two years later, the Academy school was opened on land adjoining the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston. Under the leadership of Superior Mother Mary Edmond St. George and Bishop Benedict Fenwick, the school soon outgrew its quarters and relocated to Mount Benedict in Charlestown in 1828.

By the 1830s the school housed fifty to sixty boarders, many of whom belonged to the city’s prominent Unitarian families. In 1834, only ten of the fifty-seven pupils being educated at the convent were Catholic. The sisters of Mount Benedict taught young ladies ages six to fourteen, and divided the school into two classes: the junior, supervised by Sister Mary Augustine (Frances O’Keefe); and the senior, supervised by Sister Mary Benedict (Mary Barber). The school boasted a more diverse and rigorous curriculum than was typically offered to American girls of the period. The Ursuline’s European-style education exposed pupils to academic subjects, such as geography, astronomy, and philosophy in addition to religious instruction, needlework, and “the extra branches,” which included cooking, music, and painting.

On August 11, 1834, a mob of townspeople gathered at the gates of the convent, demanding to see a nun who was rumored to be kept in the convent against her will. Spurred on by a revival of anti-Catholic nativism, the townspeople ransacked and burned the convent, forcing the students and sisters to flee to nearby farms. Though attempts were made to revive their ministry after the fire, the Bostonian Ursulines were officially disbanded in 1840.

In February 1878, Mrs. Elizabeth Williams Hayward (circa 1819-1899), wife of George P. Hayward, decided to commemorate the thirty-fourth anniversary of Mount Benedict’s destruction by reuniting the former convent girls who were present on the night of the riot. She held a reunion at her home on Pinckney Street in Boston on February 27, 1878. Amongst the attendees was Louisa Goddard Whitney (1819-1883), who had one year earlier written an account of her experience entitled The Burning of the Convent: A Narrative of the Destruction by a Mob of the Ursuline School on Mount Benedict, Charlestown, as Remembered by One of the Pupils. Though some declined Hayward’s invitation, most were interested, and provided their former classmate with leads to the married names and locations of other former students. Ann Babson (b. 1822), the wife of state senator John J. Babson of Gloucester, Massachusetts, could not attend the reunion, but she did provide the names of other convent girls and a sketch of her own remembrances of the convent fire.

Sources

Schultz, Nancy Lusignan. Fire and Roses the Burning of the Charlestown Convent, 1834. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2000.

“John James Babson.” Memorial Biographies of the New England Historical Genealogical Society: 1880-1889, 258. The New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1907.