Georgetown Visitation Monastery

This monastery was founded by Alice Lalor, native of County Kilkenny, Ireland, who sailed for this country in 1794 with her sister, Mrs. Doran, the wife of an American merchant.

Lalor bought a small cottage near that of three French noblewomen of the Order of Poor Clares, who had escaped the revolutionary Terror and hoped to found a house in the land of their asylum.

[2] No enclosure was observed at first and the ladies were called Mistress or Madam until 1816 when Archbishop Neale obtained from Pope Pius VII the Brief dated 14 July, which raised the community to the rank of a monastery.

[2] Six months later, Archbishop Neale died, but he had appointed Joseph Picot de Limoëlan [fr], a Chouan who was involved in the plot of the rue Saint-Nicaise, of Charleston, South Carolina, as director of the community.

In 1819 the first prospectus was issued over the signatures of Henrietta Brent, Jerusha Barber, and Joseph de Cloriviere; in 1823 a new academy was built, and in 1829 three European sisters arrived.