Saint Mary's Seminary
La Porte, Harris County, Texas
Marker Inscription
When the Rev. Nicholas Gallagher became third bishop of Galveston in 1882, most Roman Catholic priests in the Diocese were natives of other states or countries. Realizing the need for a diocesan seminary to train young Texans for the priesthood, Bishop Gallagher founded St. Mary's Seminary School for Boys. The school opened in the fall of 1901 with 30 grammar school-age boys and 6 seminarians. St. Mary's Seminary was located at this site in La Porte's Sylvan Beach Hotel, once a majestic resort center, which had been heavily damaged in the 1900 hurricane. Over the years, increased enrollment necessitated the construction of additional facilities. Under the leadership of the Rev. James Kirwin, who served as president from 1911 until his death in 1926, St. Mary's became nationally known for its academic excellence. In 1926, the seminary was awarded university status, with the right to confer academic degrees. Many of its alumni, including more than 6 we became bishops, have served as prominent church leaders. In 1954, the school relocated to Houston and eventually merged with St. Thomas University in that city. The chapel continues to serve the members of St. Mary's parish in La Porte. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When Nicholas Gallagher became bishop of Galveston in 1882, he found most of his priests were born outside Texas, so he founded a seminary to train young Texans for the priesthood. St. Mary's opened in 1901 with thirty grammar-school boys and six seminarians in La Porte's Sylvan Beach Hotel, a once-majestic resort battered by the 1900 hurricane. Under Rev. James Kirwin it won national renown and university status in 1926 before relocating to Houston in 1954 and eventually merging with St. Thomas University.
Why it matters
It marks the rise of a homegrown Texas Catholic clergy, a diocesan school whose graduates — several of them future bishops — helped shape the Church across the American South.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Nicholas Gallagher
- · James Kirwin
Related events
- · 1900 Galveston hurricane
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Historic La Porte Colored School
La Porte, TX
Before La Porte built a public school for its Black children, they learned in a local church that doubled as classroom and sanctuary. Around 1909 a former Methodist church was moved to this site to serve as a one-room schoolhouse for grades one through eight, older students traveling eight miles to high school in Baytown. For decades it was known simply as "Mrs. Dewalt's school" after its devoted teacher Viola Dewalt, until a new brick campus opened in 1953.
Bayland Orphans Home
Baytown, TX
In the wreckage the Civil War left across Texas, Henry Gillette and a small group of citizens gathered in 1866 to care for the children of Confederate soldiers, and the Texas Legislature chartered their orphanage that September. On a bluff overlooking Tabbs Bay, a two-story brick house became home to a growing family of children—76 of them by 1870—sustained by donated land, stocks, and a state grant of tens of thousands of acres. When support shifted toward Houston, the home relocated in 1888 and, through many changes of name and mission, endures today as Harris County's Burnett Bayland Rehabilitation Center.
Ashbel Smith, M. D.
Baytown, TX
Born in Connecticut and Yale-educated, Ashbel Smith (1805–1885) arrived in Texas in 1837 and was soon appointed surgeon-general of the Texas army. He served the Republic as secretary of state and as minister to Great Britain, France, Belgium, and Spain, then sat in the state legislature after annexation. A Confederate colonel in the Civil War, he also presided over the first Board of Regents of the University of Texas and championed its Galveston medical branch.
Bell Prairie
Baytown, TX
Henry Falvel Gillette, a Connecticut-born educator, came to Texas in 1840 and by 1859 had bought land on Galveston Bay for a plantation he named Bell Prairie. The estate included a two-story brick home, a carriage house, and quarters for the enslaved people whose labor sustained it, along with a wharf used to import cattle from England. Gillette also superintended a nearby orphans' home and helped found a Masonic lodge; his plantation house, battered by the 1900 hurricane, finally burned after a lightning strike in 1915.