Thus, after the establishment of an independent Province for the United States in 1835, the growing number of local bishops in the country began to request their help in running seminaries they had founded but did not have the means, either financially or in terms of manpower, to operate.
[2] The Vincentians served there until the appointment of the Superior of the school, Thaddeus Amat y Brusi, as the first Bishop of Los Angeles in 1852.
At that point, dealing with their own shortage of personnel, and also being dissatisfied with the organization of the school under the bishop, they decided to withdraw from the seminary.
[2] In 1851 the Congregation had acquired land in Germantown Township, then still a rural suburb of Philadelphia, which was to become the center of their operations on the Eastern seaboard,[3] and there opened the Parish of St. Vincent de Paul.
This included both the novitiate and the scholasticate (the college-level facility), which came to become known as St. Vincent Seminary, which were established adjacent to the parish church.