Originally called Patiarero, it was one of the largest settlements on the Whanganui River in the 1840s with several hundred Ngāti Hau inhabitants of the iwi Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi.

[1] Jerusalem was the isolated site where, in 1892, Suzanne Aubert (better known as Mother Mary Joseph) established the congregation of the Sisters of Compassion.

[3][4] A convent remains on the mission property, as well as the church which replaced the original building destroyed by fire in 1888, and Sisters of Compassion still care for them.

[10] From 1891, the Jerusalem settlement took in some abandoned children from around New Zealand, the majority of whom had unmarried or widowed parents and were sometimes anonymously sent to the convent.

This came at a time when there was widespread publicity about and condemnation of baby farming, in particular, the case of Minnie Dean.

Against legislation and popular opinion at the time, Suzanne Aubert, as leader of the Jerusalem Foundling Home, believed firmly that the anonymity of parents was essential to ensuring the safety of both them and their children.

However, this meant the Home was ineligible for state funding at the time, due to ignoring legislation which required registers to list the names of parents and submit these to Government inspection.