The Sulpician Fathers had fled France in 1790 as refugees of the French Revolution and were affiliated with St. Mary's Seminary, in whose basements the Haitians began to meet.

[3] The majority of the free Black refugees were educated and wealthy, and the church became popular with the elite class of African-Americans in Baltimore thereafter.

In 1828, one of the parish priests, Fr James Joubert, teamed with Servant of God Mother Lange to found the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the first all-Black order of Catholic nuns, and started the all-girls' St Frances Academy, the first and oldest Black Catholic school in the United States.

[3][4] In the 1850s, local Jesuits invited the congregation to begin meeting at St. Ignatius Church, where the group again met in a basement chapel, this time under the name of Blessed Peter Claver.

In 1863, with St. Ignatius Church under Fr Anthony Ciampi, the Jesuits helped the Black congregation purchase a building, which was dedicated the next year under the current name.