Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton (1774-1821), the first American-born saint in the Roman Catholic Church, corresponded with Fr. John Hickey (1789-1869), a Sulpician Catholic priest in Baltimore, Maryland. Box 13 folder 23 of the John Gilamary Shea Papers contains eight letters from Elizabeth to Fr. Hickey. The Shea Papers comprise the personal papers of the foremost Catholic historian in the United States in the nineteenth century. For this blog post, the author selected to focus on one of the letters.
Born in New York City on August 28, 1774, Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton was the daughter of Richard Bayley, a medical doctor, and Catherine Charlton, the daughter of the rector of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church on Staten Island, New York. On January 25, 1794, Elizabeth married William Magee Seton, a member of a family of merchants in New York City. The couple had five children. Elizabath’s charity work predated her conversion to Catholicism as she participated in various societal organizations, such as the Society of Widows in New York City. In 1803, Elizabeth and William sailed to Italy hoping to find a better climate to alleviate his bouts of consumption. William died in Italy, and Elizabeth, through the friendly Filicchi family, started her journey towards becoming a Roman Catholic.
In 1804, Elizabeth returned to New York City and converted to Catholicism in the following year. In 1809, she started a school for young girls in Baltimore. A year later, she took religious vows as a nun and then operated a school for girls in Emmitsburg, Maryland. There she founded the Sisters of Charity, the first women’s religious community in the United States. The sisters succeeded in their mission despite some obstacles, especially financial ones. They initially did not charge tuition for their school. Furthermore, they had limited resources to tend to the needs of the local community, including help for widows and orphans. The sisters relied on private monetary donations.
Elizabeth died of tuberculosis in 1821. She became venerable in 1959, was beatified in 1963, and was canonized in 1975. Elizabeth’s two sons, William and Richard, attended Georgetown College (now University) for a time.
Fr. John Hickey, S.S. was born in Frederick, Maryland in 1789. He was the first Sulpician priest to be ordained after studying at Mount Saint Mary’s seminary in Emmitsburg. He served several positions in Emmitsburg. From 1829 to 1841, Fr. Hickey was the superior of the Sisters of Charity.
Elizabeth corresponded with Fr. Hickey although he was not her spiritual director. Fr. Hickey was a young priest when he worked with Elizabeth. She was impatient with him at times, and she mildly chided him to prepare in a more thorough fashion when writing his sermons (1). Nonetheless, Elizabeth revered the priests she knew. After Elizabeth’s death, Fr. Hickey grew into the role of superior to her religious sisters.
The Letter:
24 Augt 1820
My blessed friend & Father and dear Brother,
Our sister Jane is gone to pray for us. I hope but I know you will pray for her. She was not, and surely much less now be unmindful of your dearest interests. “My God and my All” her last word in the last agony. So she died in our family you see, for will you or my Brother ever have any other motto?
Eve is a truly good soul, desires your prayers, and begs you to indulge her by letting her hear from her people whom she wishes again to know that she is well & happy. Do write to her a few lines, and please to bless your poor old friend and Mother in Xt.
EA Seton [signed].
The letter was addressed to:
Rd J. Hickey, St. Mary’s Baltimore
A note on envelope read:
“Pray remind blessed Mr Deloel of our Jane at the altar with my devoted respects.”
The Jane in this letter must be Jane Gartland. In her biography of Elizabeth, author Catherine O’Donnell mentioned that Sister Jane Gartland, the sisters’ treasurer, died in 1820, when Elizabeth herself was in poor health. (2)
Elizabeth wrote this letter near the end of her life. The historian John Gilmary Shea collected this original letter over the course of his research in the nineteenth century. This letter from Elizabeth Ann Seton to Fr. John Hickey shows that she treated her fellow religious sisters and the priests she knew as part of her own family.
- Catherine O’Donnell, Elizabeth Seton: American Saint (Ithaca, NY: Cornell U. Press, 2018), 342.
- O’Donnell, Elizabeth Seton, 413.
Box 26 folder 48 of the John Gilmary Shea Papers contains two images of Elizabeth Ann Seton. Both images are presented in this blog post. Both images had been in the possession of one of her sons.
Scott S. Taylor
Manuscripts Archivist
