Seton Hill

Location

Seton Hill is approximately ten blocks north of Oriole Park at Camden Yards, and is near Walter’s Art Gallery, Baltimore Symphony, the University of Maryland and Maryland General Hospital. Seton Hill National Historic District is bordered by Eutaw Street on the East, Franklin Street on the South, Pennsylvania Avenue and Orchard Street on the West, and McCulloh and Monument Streets on the North.

Zip Code: 21201

Description

Seton Hill, Baltimore’s former French Quarter, is centered around the former St. Mary's Seminary and College, which was founded by Sulpician priests fleeing the French Revolution around1791. Today Saint Mary’s Park is situated where the former Seminary and College once stood. The neighborhood was designated as an Historic and Architectural Preservation District of Baltimore City in 1968, and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. Saint Mary's Park, the heart of Seton Hill, is the largest open green space in downtown Baltimore on the West Side.

History

In 1790 Bishop John Carroll met with Father Nagot of the Order of St. Sulpice and agreed to a plan for the establishment of the Sulpician Order in Maryland. A year later Fathers Nagot, Tessier, Garnier, and Levadoux opened the Sulpician headquarters in One Mile Tavern then located at Franklin Street and Hookstown Road, known today as Pennsylvania Avenue.

The Sulpicians soon purchased the inn, adapting it to a seminary, and in future years they completed an extensive college and seminary complex in the area of the existing Seminary structures. St. Mary's thus became the first Catholic seminary in the United States, celebrating its 175th anniversary in 1966.

One particularly significant structure located on the Seminary grounds is a small chapel, the Chapel of Our Lady of the Presentation, which was dedicated in 1808. This structure, designed by Maximilien  Godefroy, a prominent architect of the time and teacher at the college, is the oldest remaining example of Gothic Revival architecture in the U.S.