Loretto
Allegheny Township, Cambria County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Founded 1799 by the prince-priest Demetrius Gallitzin. Here he began in 1800 the first school in the area, a forerunner of Saint Francis College, chartered in 1858. Catholic cultural center. Charles M. Schwab, steel king, had his home here.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Loretto owes its founding in 1799 to Demetrius Gallitzin, a Russian-born prince who gave up nobility to become a Catholic missionary priest on the Pennsylvania frontier. He opened a school here at the dawn of the new century, planting a seed that grew into Saint Francis College and made this remote settlement an enduring Catholic cultural center. Generations later the steel magnate Charles M. Schwab kept a grand home in the same hills.
Why it matters
It shows how a single frontier missionary's schoolhouse could seed lasting institutions of faith and learning in the young republic.
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Related people
- · Demetrius Gallitzin
- · Charles M. Schwab
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Saint Vincent
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In 1846 the German-born monk Boniface Wimmer planted the first Benedictine community in the United States on the grounds of a Catholic parish that dated to 1789. From that seed grew Saint Vincent Archabbey, College, and Seminary, chartered by Pennsylvania in 1870 to teach the liberal arts and sciences. The monastery became a mother house whose monks fanned out to found ten more abbeys and colleges across eight states.
St. Xavier's
Unity Township, PA · est. 1946
When the Sisters of Mercy sailed from Ireland in 1843, they established at this convent and academy their oldest foundation in America. From this quiet Westmoreland County house, the order sent women outward as nurses and teachers, seeding schools and hospitals across a growing nation. It is a monument to immigrant faith and to the outsized role Catholic sisterhoods played in early American education and care of the sick.
Demetrius Gallitzin
Loretto, PA · est. 1947
Demetrius Gallitzin was a Russian prince who renounced a life of aristocratic ease to become a Catholic priest on the American frontier, founding the colony of Loretto in 1799. He labored among the settlers of the Allegheny highlands for four decades until his death in 1840, and St. Michael's Church stands on the site of his original chapel. His tomb here honors one of the most unusual missionaries in early American history.
Loretto
Cresson Township, PA · est. 1947
The village of Loretto, a few miles from this marker, was founded in 1799 by Prince Demetrius Gallitzin as a Catholic colony on the Allegheny frontier. The priest-missioner who gave his life to the settlement is buried there, and generations later the steel magnate Charles Schwab made his home in Loretto and was laid to rest in the same ground. The place links the earliest days of frontier faith to the towering ambitions of the industrial age.