Elizabeth Ann Seton

Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton (August 28, 1774 – January 4, 1821) was a Catholic religious sister in the United States and an educator, known as a founder of the country's parochial school system. After her death, she became the first person born in what would become the United States to be canonized by the Catholic Church (September 14, 1975). She also established the first Catholic girls' school in the nation in Emmitsburg, Maryland, where she likewise founded the first American congregation of religious sisters, the Sisters of Charity. Biography Early life Elizabeth Ann Bayley was born on August 28, 1774, the second child of a socially prominent couple, a surgeon, Richard Bayley and Catherine Charlton of New York City. The Bayley and Charlton families were among the earliest European settlers in the New York area. Her father's parents were of French Huguenot and English descent and lived in New Rochelle, New York. As Chief Health Officer for the Port of New York, Bayley attended to immigrants disembarking from ships onto Staten Island and cared for New Yorkers when yellow fever swept through the city (for example, killing 700 in four months). Bayley later served as the first professor of anatomy at Columbia College. Elizabeth's mother was the daughter of a Church of England priest who was rector of St. Andrew's Church on Staten Island for 30 years. Elizabeth was raised in what would eventually become (in the years after the American Revolution) the Episcopal Church. Her mother, Catherine, died in 1777 when Elizabeth was three years old, possibly due to complications from the birth of her namesake Catherine, who died early the following year. Elizabeth's father then married Charlotte Amelia Barclay, a member of the Jacobus James Roosevelt family, to provide a mother for his two surviving daughters. The new Mrs. Bayley participated in her church's social ministry and often took young Elizabeth with her on charitable rounds. They visited the poor in their homes to distribute food and needed items.