Ursuline Convent on Mt. Benedict - Charleston, Boston Mass.

Ursuline Convent on Mt. Benedict. In 1820 on Mount Benedict, in what was then Charlestown without the Neck and is now East Somerville, a community of the Order of St. Ursula (established in 1536) purchased an extensive tract of land, including what was earlier called the Plowed Hill, and in 1827 occupied on its summit the newly erected Ursuline Convent. Its Seminary for Girls became widely known, and attracted pupils from all over New England, from many of the southern states, and from the British provinces. Two larger wings were added to the building in 1829. After unfounded or grossly exaggerated reports had been circulated in the community about suspected doings in the convent, on the evening of Monday, August 11, 1834, a mob attacked the building, dispersing its 12 nuns and 57 girls, and burned the convent to the ground. The ruins of the structure stood starkly on the hilltop for the next fifty years. Leading citizens of Charlestown strongly denounced the outrage, among them Dr. Abraham R. Thompson, widely known as a member of the school committee, a popular officer of the Warren Phalanx, and chairman of the committee that welcomed Lafayette to Bunker Hill in 1824. The first Roman Catholic Church in Boston was erected only a few years before, in 1803; and in Charlestown the first Roman parish, St. Mary's, entered its original building at the corner of what are now Rutherford Avenue and Union Street, in 1829.
Courtesy of Boston Public Library