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10/1843 AD founded

Holy Cross was founded by The Rt Rev. Benedict Joseph Fenwick, S.J., second Bishop of Boston, after his efforts to found a Catholic college in Boston were thwarted by the city's Protestant civic leaders. From the beginning of his tenure as bishop, Fenwick intended to establish a Catholic college within the boundaries of his diocese.

Relations with Boston's civic leaders worsened such that, when a Jesuit faculty was finally secured in 1843, Fenwick decided to leave the Boston school and instead opened the College of the Holy Cross 45 miles (72 km) west of the city in central Massachusetts, where he felt the Jesuits could operate with greater autonomy.

The site of the college, Mount Saint James, was originally occupied by a Roman Catholic boarding school run by the Rev. James Fitton, with his lay collaborator Joseph Brigden, since 1832. On February 2, 1843, Fr. Fitton sold the land to Bishop Fenwick and the Diocese of Boston to be used to found the Roman Catholic college that the bishop had wanted in Boston.

Fenwick gave the college the name of his cathedral church, the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. The Bishop's letters record his enthusiasm for the project as well as for its location:

Next May I shall lay the foundation of a splendid College in Worcester ... It is calculated to contain 100 boys and I shall take them for $125 per an. & supply them with everything but clothes. Will not this be a bold undertaking? Nevertheless I will try it. It will stand on a beautiful eminence & will command the view of the whole town of Worcester.[9]

The school opened in October 1843 with the Rev. Thomas F. Mulledy, S.J., former president of Georgetown University, as its first president, and on the second day of November, with six students aged 9 to 19, the first classes were held..

. Within three years, the enrollment had increased to 100 students. Initially the education was more at the elementary and high school level; later it became a higher level institution.

Worcester, MA

Lattitude: 42.2712° N
Longitude: 71.7988° W
Region: North America