Born in 1857 in New York,[1] Thomas McCluskey attended De La Salle Institute and Manhattan College and graduated from the latter in 1874.

He was appointed pastor of the Church of St. Francis Xavier, New York in 1897, where he remained until becoming a professor of classics at St. Louis University and Boston College in 1902.

In 1906, McCluskey became vice-president of the Jesuit Collegium Maximum at Woodstock, Maryland, and in 1907 he was appointed president of the College of St. Francis Xavier, New York.

To help mitigate this financial problem, McCluskey founded a school of pharmacy in 1912,[3] which would prosper for several decades before being closed due to low enrollment in 1972.

Aside from the resulting new appointments, the medical school began to prosper and gain a favorable reputation during this period, and was moved into its newly completed building in 1913.