[2] Upon the arrival of some Belgian Redemptorists in the United States in 1838, they began the mission work for which they had been established in Italy a century earlier by their founder, Alphonsus Maria de' Liguori, C.Ss.R., a bishop and noted spiritual writer, among the Native Americans who lived along the frontier of the young nation.
In 1904, with financing by the family of Father Augustine Duper, C.Ss.R., a native of the Bronx, the decision was made to move the seminary to Esopus, where they had purchased a 235-acre property, which eventually grew to over 400 acres.
[6] In 1985, due to the declining numbers of students, the decision was made by the province to relocate their seminarians to study at the Washington Theological Union in Washington, D.C.[4] The seminary building was then refashioned into a retreat center, serving people in the greater New York area, New Jersey and Connecticut.
[3] Because of their aging membership, in 2011 the leaders of the province determined they could no longer maintain the Mount and the entirely facility would have to be closed.
[8] In March 2014, the Bruderhof of The Mount Community restored the building's church bells, which were non-functional since the 1980s; this cost US$75,000.