History of Georgetown Visitation
Making Georgetown Visitation
IN 1799, Father Leonard Neale (later Bishop and Archbishop), President of Georgetown College (later University), invited "three pious ladies" to found a school for young women. With little more than faith and determination, they accepted his challenge and opened a school in a simple one-room house. One of the oldest Catholic girls’ schools in the nation, it has grown and flourished for over 200 years.
The school opened near Georgetown College (now University) because its fourth President, Father Leonard Neale, S.J., (later Bishop and Archbishop) co-founded the Academy and Convent. He invited Alice Lalor, whom he had known in Philadelphia, and soon after, Maria McDermott and Maria Sharpe followed. These founders would come to be called “The Three Pious Ladies.”
These painted copies from originals at the first Visitation house in Annecy, France portray St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane de Chantal. Father Michael Wheeler brought them back to Georgetown after a visit to Annecy in 1829. Collection of Georgetown Visitation.
When Father Neale completed his tenure as President in 1806, he moved to a house on the Convent grounds. He and the "Three Pious Ladies” discerned that the Visitation Order fit their needs. Founded in 1610 in Annecy, France by St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane de Chantal, this cloistered order valued contemplative life, but required no severe asceticism.
The founding Sisters were drawn to the work of these saints for its liberty of spirit, optimism, simplicity, and common-sense approach to life. Father Neale’s being raised to Archbishop of Baltimore in 1815 enabled communication directly with Rome. The following year the Pope granted permission to form the first Visitation house in the Americas.
Although enrollment records are scant, there seems to have been sixteen paying students in 1820. In 1826, it had increased to 48, and by this time leadership had changed. Father Joseph-Pierre Picot de Clorivière had become chaplain in 1819. A French royalist and nobleman, whose parents had been put to death during the French Revolution, he had volunteered to be the person to give the signal to detonate an explosive that fellow conspirators had attached to Napoleon’s carriage. This assassination plot failed, so he fled to the United States and was later ordained as a Jesuit. Upon arrival at Georgetown, he donated his family inheritance and built four buildings in eight years. His accomplishments from 1819 until his death in 1826 have earned him the unofficial title of being Georgetown Visitation’s second founder.
The 1827 prospectus signed by Father Wheeler confirms that students were examined in geography, history, mythology, astronomy, chemistry, French, Spanish, and vocal & instrumental music. This prospectus must have been co-written with the young and ambitious new directress of the academy appointed the previous year, Sister Ann Gertrude Wightt. It was she who established the annual public examinations in the Odeon, at which numerous U.S. presidents gave out the awards during the first half of the nineteenth century. In 1829, Sister Gertrude oversaw the new dormitory’s construction to accommodate increasing enrollment and expanded campus beyond the one-block radius with the acquisition of more lots along P Street.
Rome had recognized the Georgetown Visitation Order in 1816, but on May 24, 1828, the Sisters were incorporated by Congress, an act signed by President John Quincy Adams, who, a few months later, handed out awards at the commencement exercises. In 1838, increasing enrollment prompted the West Academy’s construction, which provided additional classrooms, a dining room, and the Playroom, which is still used today by juniors as their common space.
This new building, which was constructed adjacent to the 1829 dormitory, formed the head of a line of structures that ends with the 1819 Benevolent School, today called Gallerie, named for the first Visitation house in Annecy, France.
Prominent people began sending their daughters to the school. In 1830, the great granddaughter of Martha Washington, Britannia Wellington Peter (later Kennon), graduated. The niece and ward of James Buchanan, Harriet Lane (later Johnston), graduated in 1848. She became First Lady when her bachelor uncle became U.S. President in 1857.
The law provided for compensation to enslavers for the people whom they had enslaved. The Sisters of the Visitation filed a petition seeking compensation for twelve individuals. Government records show that Ignatius Tilghman, a man the Convent had enslaved, filed a counter petition, citing an 1856 agreement to buy his and his family’s freedom for $500. He argued that the Sisters should not be compensated for the amount he had paid toward his family’s freedom. The Sisters vigorously contested his counterclaim. It is unclear whether Ignatius Tilghman ever recouped any of his money, but the Convent was not allotted the exact amount that he had paid when the government eventually compensated them in 1864.
Following emancipation, Ignatius and his wife Susan Tilghman and their seven children lived in the District of Columbia for about 20 years until some of them moved to Philadelphia around 1900. Others formerly enslaved by the Convent took different paths. Benjamin Mahoney served in the Navy during the Civil War, eventually becoming ill, after which he was discharged, possibly dying shortly thereafter. Thomas Weldon and Joseph Dixon both married and raised their families in Southern Maryland.
Contrary to oral tradition, there are no written records that the Sisters taught enslaved children. In fact, federal census records indicate that many people formerly enslaved by Visitation were illiterate. Of the fourteen people freed between 1853 and 1862: data cannot be found for two; another two were too young to be taught; six were illiterate; and documentary evidence for the other four is inconclusive. These records suggest that people enslaved at Visitation at that time had not been taught to read or write.
Another oral tradition referred to a “slave cabin” behind today’s tennis courts. This name, which was given in the late 1930s when segregation was still legal, was used in Visitation’s 1969 filing with the Historic American Buildings Registry. The moniker misleadingly suggested that enslaved people lived in the cabin; in fact, it was built in the late eighteenth century by the Threlkeld family as a dairy for processing milk. In the late 1940s, it was refurbished into a recreational field house, and became the site for Marshmallow Roast. For decades, this misnomer caused many students great discomfort and it was particularly harmful to Visitation’s Black students.
In 1872, the Sisters commissioned from Philadelphian architect Norris G. Starkweather a late Victorian, Italianate, four-story building with mansard detailing on its top level. This building became an iconic component of the school's identity.
Professed women who taught in that building were arriving with advanced degrees. In 1882, Sister Regina Toomey entered with a degree from the State Normal and Teaching School of New York. A published historian, Sister Mary Baptista Linton, authored, in 1885, an award-winning educational system for teaching history, called the Linton Century Charts.
And on campus around this time, the cemetery in the southwest corner of the Convent garden had reached capacity, so the “New Cemetery” was platted in 1887. In 1891, the Sisters built a wash house, with a state-of-the-art industrial laundry machine. This is now the Senior Lodge. And, in 1895, the Convent added a large, two-story brick barn for keeping livestock and horses, which was renovated in the late 1950s into St. Bernard Library.
During the late 1920s and 1930s classes competed by staging theatrical performances, usually a Shakespeare play. And perhaps it is this regular contest that transformed into the tradition of Marshmallow Roast, which can be documented as early as 1913. Eventually students started writing original productions, and it later changed into a “roast,” with skits that good-naturedly tease faculty and staff. It is a fitting tradition at a Salesian school as eutrapela is a little virtue linked to helping others and ourselves remain humble through poking fun in order to help people be comfortable with their idiosyncrasies. Indeed, in his Introduction to the Devout Life, St. Francis de Sales, says that, "By them we take an honest an friendly recreation from such frivolous occasions as human imperfections furnish us with."
In 1937, Visitation’s other beloved tradition, an athletic house-based competition called Gold-White, was developed by the Athletic Association, which had been founded in 1917. This was in part because the campus had a new gymnasium, which had been built during the Great Depression in 1935. After this time, athletics became increasingly important as part of extracurricular offerings.
The Junior College had thrived at a time when women sought higher levels of education, and the Sisters had responded to that demand. But in the 1960s, women had more choices than ever. So, because of waning enrollment, rising costs of operating two schools, and a shortage of religious personnel, the Junior College was closed in 1964.
The next year, the first known black student, Anne Williams, arrived on campus. She was a transfer sophomore and graduated in 1968. Another student, Tanya Britton, matriculated as well and graduated the next year in 1969. They are the first known black graduates of Visitation.
By the mid-sixties, the school started seeing a decline in the number of resident students, so the boarding school was closed in 1975. This was a difficult decision made when Sister Mary Berchmans Hannan, VHM, '48 & '50 was Headmistress.
She came to Visitation as a 14‑year‑old to join the sophomore class, graduating in 1948, and later the Junior College in 1950. She entered the Monastery the next year, professing in 1952. She taught Latin and religion for many years. Then she became headmistress of the school in 1969, serving in that role for 20 years, and later as president for the next 17.
By 1979, the student body numbered 372. The faculty of 39 counted eight Sisters in its ranks, along with a curriculum director, a registrar, a guidance counselor, and a college counselor. One of many beloved and inspired teachers was Sister Mary de Sales McNabb. She developed innovative courses in science and computers and served as Mother Superior at the Monastery from 1984 to 1990, and again from 1996 to 2002.
Enrollment steadily increased, and in 1986 Daniel Kerns Jr. became assistant head of school and academic dean. Three years later he was appointed head of school, the first lay leader, and Sister Mary Berchmans Hannan took the newly formed position of president.
The Salesian Network was started in 1988, which was a way of naming and explaining Visitation charism, which the Sisters had always shared by example. In acknowledgement of the fact that lay faculty and staff were the school’s future, the next year began with a fundraising effort, the Century III Endowment Fund, for faculty enrichment and salaries, as well as student scholarships.
Dr. Barbara McGraw Edmondson and Sister Mary Berchmans Hannan, VHM, '48 & '50 at Dr. Edmondson's Installation as Head of School.
A campus redesign moved a parking lot from between the gym and Founders Hall to behind the Lodge. This re-claimed green quadrangle was bordered by the 1935 gym, renovated into The Catherine E. Nolan Performing Arts Center, along with the newly built Sarah and Charles T. Fisher Athletic Center. The two buildings were completed in October 1998 and dedicated at a kickoff celebration for the bicentennial, with many events during that academic year to acknowledge Visitation’s two hundredth anniversary.
The year of 1934 had brought the first lay woman to teach an academic subject. Now all faculty members are laypeople. Some have Ph.Ds. Many are alumnae, teaching in ways they learned from the Sisters. The model of laypeople leading continued with Mary Kate Blaine becoming school principal in 2013. A fundraising campaign, which began that fall, enriched the school’s endowment, funded a new turf surface for McNabb Field in 2014, renovated the Sheehy Dining Room in 2016, and, that same year, established the St. Jane de Chantal Salesian Center.
These donations also funded two new buildings in 2019. Berchmans Hall, named for Sister Mary Berchmans Hannan, VHM, ’48 & ’50, is a two-story addition to St. Joseph’s Hall with classrooms, science labs, and an art studio. The covered walkway between St. Bernard Library and St. Joseph’s Hall became the Saints Connector, with common areas and an innovation lab - the McNabb Lab, named for Sister Mary de Sales McNabb ‘48. These interconnected buildings that honor these long-serving Sisters span three centuries from 1895 to 2019.
After 30 years serving the school, Daniel Kerns Jr. retired from his position as head of school in the spring of 2019, having seen over 3,200 students graduate. Dr. Barbara McGraw Edmondson started in July 2019 as head of school. The women and men working today at Georgetown Visitation stand on the shoulders of the institution’s founders and the many Visitation Sisters, who have lived, prayed, and taught on this same piece of land under every U.S. president except George Washington.