After the Civil War, Irish author Charlotte Grace O’Brien bought the James Watson House to be the Mission of Our Lady of the Rosary, which served as a way station for young immigrant girls. The parish was established in 1884 as a mission and raised to parish status in 1886 when Cardinal John McCloskey directed that Lower Manhattan and the Harbor Islands be separated from Saint Peter’s Parish and constitute the Parish of Our Lady of the Rosary.
The Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton is located in the Church of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, a Roman Catholic parish church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York at 7 State Street, between Pearl and Water Streets in the Financial District of Manhattan, New York City.
Elizabeth Ann Seton lived at 8 State Street with her husband William Seton, after the bankruptcy of his business forced them to give up the Seton family home at 61 Stone Street. They stayed here from 1801 to 1803 before sailing to Italy for William’s health. In 1840 the site held the offices of a number of transportation companies, such as the New York and Hammondsport Lake Line Boats, the New York and Ithaca Line, and the New York and Seneca Falls Line Lake Boats. It also served as the “Eight South Street Hotel”.
Elizabeth Ann Seton was the first native-born citizen of the United States to be canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. She was received into the Roman Catholic faith at Saint Peter’s Church, Barclay Street in lower Manhattan, March 14, 1805. Elizabeth went to Maryland in 1808 and opened a school next to the chapel of St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore. Samuel Sutherland Cooper, a wealthy convert and seminarian, purchased 269 acres of land for an establishment for the sisterhood near Emmitsburg in the countryside of Frederick County, Maryland. According to tradition, Elizabeth named the area Saint Joseph’s Valley. In June 1809 she established the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph. During the Civil War at least 270 sisters served as nurses and were called “angels of the battlefield” by both Union and Confederate soldiers.
The Georgian Revival, Colonial Revival brick church was built in 1964-5 at 22 Barclay Street, next to the Seton home, was designed by the firm of Shanley & Sturges.