Step inside the home where America’s first saint shaped history. The Mother Seton House is where Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first American-born saint, began her pioneering journey in Catholic education and social service. Nestled within St. Mary’s Park just minutes from downtown Baltimore, this Federal-style row home remains one of the city’s most important religious and historical landmarks.

Seton arrived in 1808, renting the house for $250 a year as she opened a small boarding school for girls, laying the foundation for the first free Catholic school in the U.S. She described her new home as a “neat, delightful mansion” with elegant French-inspired architecture—a reflection of the surrounding immigrant community. Just steps away, the Historic Seminary Chapel, dedicated on the very day of her arrival, became the heart of her spiritual transformation.

Though she lived here for just one year, her time in Baltimore was life-changing. In this very house, she took her first religious vows and earned the title “Mother Seton” before leaving for Emmitsburg, Maryland, to establish the Sisters of Charity.

Over the years, the home fell into disrepair—used at various times as a potato bin and laundry facility—before a dedicated restoration effort in the 1960s returned it to its original condition. Today, visitors can explore the preserved rooms filled with Federal-era furnishings, walk the same halls where Seton lived and taught, and experience the place where her lasting legacy began.