 The Historic District of
Toronto
In 1845, the first U.S. citizen to become a Christian Brother completed his training in Montreal, where the Institute traces its North American beginnings back to 1837. This young man was John McMullen, who was given the name of Brother Francis. In 1845, he and an Irish-Canadian novice, Brother Edward, started conducting the already-existing school (previously staffed by laymen) at Calvert Hall in Baltimore. Calvert Hall thus became the first permanent Lasallian school in the United States.
In 1848, four French Christian Brothers journeyed to New York from France, and within two months they established St. Vincent’s Parochial School on Canal Street. Very soon thereafter, a private school for boarding and day students opened. This was St. Vincent’s Academy, which became De La Salle Institute in 1861.
Loyal to the charism of Saint La Salle, the Christian Brothers responded generously to the tremendous need for Catholic education in many other cities and towns in the youthful, growing nation. By the late 1860s, the New York District (comprising all Lasallian establishments in the East) was probably considered as a District. After 1870, there was no doubt about this status. The New York District, however, became too large for one Brother Visitor (Provincial) to administer, so the schools and communities in the mid-Atlantic became the Baltimore District in 1878. Decades passed, and after the New York District experienced additional growth pains, the Institute established the Long Island-New England District for the schools in that part of the country in 1956.
Meanwhile, north of the border, the Christian Brothers had come to Toronto as early as 1851. The District of Toronto was set up in 1888, but prematurely so, because its schools and communities had to reunite with the Montreal District (1896-1914). Reconstituted in 1914, the Toronto District was an integral part of the Institute until a sharp decline resulted in the status of Delegation, effective in 2001. In January 2007, the Delegation of Toronto was incorporated into the New York District.
After a half-dozen—or more—years of discussion and diligent planning in light of changing realities, the Districts of Baltimore, Long Island-New England, and New York were suppressed by the Institute on Wednesday, September 9, 2009. On the same day, in their place commenced the new District of Eastern North America, with its Provincialate in Eatontown, NJ. Whether by coincidence or design, the telephone call from Rome announcing the transition was received at 9 a.m., EST—the ninth hour of the ninth day of the ninth month of ’09!
Edited by:
Brother Joseph Grabenstein, FSC
Archives
September 9, 2009
NOTE: The sources of this chronicle are drawn from the archives of the New York District, Brother Angelus Gabriel’s “The Brothers of the Christian Schools in the United States 1848-1948" (New York: McMullen, 1948), and the personnel lists and other documents prepared by Brother Eugene O’Gara, who was good enough to review this essay and to make suggestions for its improvement.
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