History

History of New York District by Br. Luke Salm (PDF)

Origins 1848-1861

On July 26, 1848 four De La Salle Christian Brothers under the leadership of Brother Stylien arrived in New York from France to take over the direction of St. Vincent’s Parish School on Canal Street. These were the first Brothers to establish a permanent foundation in New York but it was not the beginning of the New York District, even though Brother Stylien functioned as a sort of on-site supervisor of the foundations in New York. Ever since the foundation at Montreal in 1837, all the Brothers’ establishments in North America were under the direction of Brother Aidant, the Provincial Visitor as he was called, with Montreal as the headquarters. Shortly after the arrival of the Brothers in New York, Brother Facile succeeded Brother Aidant as the Provincial Visitor of North America. In that role, he took a special interest in the foundations in the United States, even after he was elected in 1861as an Assistant to the Superior General. So identified was he with the American Brothers that after his death in 1877 his remains were brought to New York and interred in the novitiate cemetery at Amawalk.

The earliest novices to join the pioneers in 1848 were allowed to make their novitiate in the Canal Street community but shortly thereafter all the postulants were sent to the provincial novitiate in Montreal, dominantly French in language and culture. The New York novices had plenty of company, however, in the large numbers of young boys recruited in Ireland and brought to Montreal.

This steady influx of vocations enabled the Brothers to expand their educational work in New York and beyond. Between 1848 and 1861 schools were opened in the (Old) Cathedral parish on Mott Street, St. Mary’s on Grand Street and in the parishes of St. Francis Xavier, Annunciation, St. Joseph, St. James, Transfiguration, St. Brigid in New York and St. James in Brooklyn. St. Vincent’s Academy that had been added in 1849 to the grade school on Canal Street had provisions both for days students and boarders. In 1853 the boarders were moved to Manhattanville in1853 to become the Academy of the Holy Infancy and eventually Manhattan College. In 1856 St. Vincent’s Academy for day students was moved to Second Street as De La Salle Institute. Beyond New York, during this period the Brothers opened orphanages, grade schools and academies in Yonkers, Troy, Albany, Utica, Rochester, Buffalo and Detroit.

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