William McSherry was one of the first Americans to complete the traditional Jesuit course of training. He became the first provincial superior of the Jesuits’ Maryland Province from 1833 to 1837. He laid the groundwork for the sale of the province’s slaves in 1838.
About William McSherry in brief
William McSherry was one of the first Americans to complete the traditional Jesuit course of training. He became the first provincial superior of the Jesuits’ Maryland Province from 1833 to 1837. He laid the groundwork for the sale of the province’s slaves in 1838. He then briefly became the president of Georgetown College in 1837, and was simultaneously made provincial superior for a second time in 1839, despite suffering illness to which he would succumb several months later. He was born in Charlestown, Virginia on July 19, 1799, to Anastasia \”Anne\” Lilly and Richard McS Sherry. He is the son of Irish immigrants, who emigrated to the U.S. in the 1780s. He entered the Society of Jesus at Georgetown as a novice on February 6, 1815. In 1820, he was sent to Rome to study philosophy and theology. In Rome, he discovered in the Jesuit archives the previously forgotten Relatio Itineris by Andrew White, which is the most comprehensive account of the journey of the Ark and the Dove, and published it.
He also rediscovered manuscripts in the archives which contained the only extant writings of the Indian tribes of Maryland. He spent time at the Pontifical Gregorian University, before being appointed the minister of the literary and medical colleges of the Collegio del Carmine in Turin, whose rector was Jan Roothaan, where he remained from 1826 to 1828. He left Livorno for the United States on a treacherous voyage that lasted 171 days, and caused some in the United states to fear that the three Jesuits aboard had perished. He arrived at Georgetown on December 22, 1828, and the following year, he became a professor of humanities at Georgetown. He later became the minister for the school, procurator, and consultor one year later. From October 1831 to June 1832, he served as the socius to Peter Kenney, who was the apostolic visitor to theJesuits in St. Louis and the Missouri Valley.
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This page is based on the article William McSherry published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 08, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
