Planting the

Seeds of Knowledge

Vision and Perseverance Let to Creation of Georgetown University

By John LaMartina, SJ

Today it is a world renowned center of learning, but Georgetown University started more than 200 years ago as a mere seed of an idea in the mind of Bishop John Carroll. Through challenges of suppression, religious intolerance and financial hardship, he persevered to see his vision of a Catholic college come to fruition. This is how it all started.

On January 23, 1789, “for and in consideration of the sum of seventy- five pounds current money,” which had been “in hand paid,” Jesuit priests John Carroll, Robert Molyneux and John Ashton received the deed to the first plot of ground to bear the name of Georgetown College, the oldest Catholic and Jesuit college in the United States.

The middle building pictured above was the first building at Georgetown University and was called "Old South."

It was a banner time for this fledging country because it was the same year the Constitution of the United States went into effect and the same year John Carroll was appointed the first bishop of Baltimore, which was the first Catholic diocese in the nation. These events laid the groundwork for the growth of Bishop Carroll’s “Academy-on-the-Potomac,” known today as Georgetown University.

Even before he was appointed bishop, Carroll saw the need for a Catholic college in the United States. During his early years, Carroll, like other Catholics in Maryland, was subject from time to time to the English penal laws, which, when enforced, forbade Catholics to worship in a public place and disallowed the establishment of Catholic schools. He was eventually sent to an academy founded in 1745 by Fr. Thomas Pulton, SJ, at Bohemia Manor in Cecil County, Md. Carroll remained at Bohemia Manor until 1748 when he was sent at age 13 to the Jesuit college of St. Omers in French Flanders. After completing his studies there, Carroll entered the novitiate of the English Jesuits at Watten in Belgium in 1753 and was then sent to pursue studies in philosophy and theology at the Jesuit college in Liege in preparation for his ordination to the priesthood in 1761. Following a year of studies in Jesuit spirituality, Father Carroll was assigned to teach philosophy at the Jesuit college at Bruges, until suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773. In 1774, he returned to America as a diocesan priest, lived at his mother’s home in Rock Creek, Md., and for the next 10 years ministered to Catholics in the area that would become Washington, D.C.

On January 14, 1784, the War of Independence from Great Britain ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris, making it possible for the new nation to steer a course into the future and for the Catholic Church in the United States to reorganize itself. Freed from English rule, American Catholics, including Carroll, now saw the possibility to vote, hold office, worship publicly and educate their children in Catholic schools.

At the time of the suppression in 1773 and before the beginning of the War of Independence in 1776, only a little more than 20 priests were in America, almost all of them ex-Jesuits. They held on to their Jesuit property, which supported their work, and despite restrictions imposed by penal laws, remained at their mission posts. They continued their ministerial functions as diocesan priests under the last Jesuit mission superior, Fr. John Lewis, SJ, whose authority had become merely nominal. In order to preserve property in the hands of ex- Jesuits and maintain discipline until the Holy See could provide for the needs of the Church in the new nation, Lewis met with the American clergy at White Marsh, Prince Georges County, Md., in 1783 and 1784, where a form of Church government was adopted, rules for the Select Body of Clergy were drawn up, and Carroll was appointed prefect apostolic of the Church in the United States and superior of the American Mission.

Archbishop John Carroll, first bishop of the United States and founder of Georgetown University.

In a letter to a friend written in 1785, Carroll wrote “The object nearest my heart now, and the only one that can give consistency to our religious views is the establishment of a school and afterwards a seminary for young clergymen.”

At a meeting of the clergy in 1786 at White Marsh, which dwelt with such questions as management and preservation of Jesuit property and the creation of a school for the “education of youth and the perpetuity of the body of clergy in America,” Carroll presented a plan for a school, an “Academy at George Town, Potowmack River, Maryland,” the site of an old tobacco port that “impressed him favorably.” The clergy approved the project, adopted a series of resolves concerning the institution of a school and directed the sale of a piece of land so that the proceeds could be applied to the construction of a college building.

Fathers John Carroll, James Pellentz, Robert Molyneux, John Ashton and Leonard Neale were appointed directors. Construction on the first building, “Old South,” began in 1788, on a hill overlooking Georgetown, on land purchased on January 23, 1789, considered to be the date of the establishment of Georgetown University. Due to lack of funds and the need to appeal to Catholics in America and England to aid in this work of vital importance for the future of the Catholic Church in the United States, the building was not ready for occupancy until 1791, when work on a second building, “Old North,” was begun.

At a meeting at White Marsh in 1789, with permission granted by the Pope, the priests of the Select Body of Clergy elected Carroll as the first bishop of Baltimore. Later that year the Constitution went into effect which, with the ratification of the First Amendment in 1791, provided religious liberty to all Americans. This gave Carroll the freedom to open a school in the liberal arts tradition that had distinguished Jesuit schools for 200 years. Carroll wanted his academy to be an institution that would give constancy to religious views of Catholics in America “by combining the best of Catholic and American cultures.”

On November 22, 1791, Georgetown College opened its doors to its first student, William Gaston of North Carolina, who would later represent his state in the Congress of the United States. Fr. Robert Plunkett, a diocesan priest and ex-Jesuit, was appointed the school’s first president. The first faculty consisted of Fr. Francis Neale, SJ, and two seminarians. The school was divided into three levels — elementary, preparatory and college — and 67 students were enrolled. Tuition was 10 pounds (about $44) per year and board was 30 pounds (about $133) per year.

Two ex-Jesuits and a Sulpician followed Plunkett as president of the college until 1806, when Bishop Carroll appointed Fr. Robert Molyneux, SJ, the first Jesuit president of Georgetown College, thereby making the school, which up to that point had been founded and administered by diocesan priests, a Jesuit college.

Fr. John Grassi, SJ, was president of the college from 1812 until 1817 and infused new life into it by promoting mathematics and science, improving the faculty and increasing enrollment. On March 1, 1815, Congress granted Georgetown the power to confer academic degrees. The bill was introduced by Georgetown’s first alumnus, Rep. William Gaston of North Carolina.

Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, religious pluralism characterized Georgetown’s student body and faculty and even in its early days, was considered a national and international school. Today, headed by its first lay president, John J. DeGioia, Georgetown University includes a renowned medical center and one of the largest and highest ranking law schools in the nation. A major international research university, Georgetown offers more than 90 undergraduate, graduate and professional programs on its three campuses to more than 12,000 students.

Georgetown University continues to fulfill the vision of John Carroll that his “Academy on the Potomac” be in the tradition of American religious tolerance open to “every class of citizens and students of every religious profession,” a national university rooted in the Catholic faith and Jesuit tradition, committed to spiritual inquiry, engaged in the public sphere and invigorated by spiritual and cultural pluralism.

John LaMartina, SJ, is the resident archivist for the Maryland Province Jesuits