History of HTS

Holy Trinity School is Washington DC’s Oldest Catholic School. Highlights of our rich history follow:
1818	The “Free School for Boys” was opened by Holy Trinity Church’s pastor, Benedict Fenwick, S.J.. It soon grew to include more than 100 boys. The Boys originally attended classes in an N Street house that Father Francis Neale, S.J. had purchased for $550 in 1805.
1823	Classes were moved to another building, called “Trinity Church Schoolhouse,” on the southwest corner of what is now 35th and N Streets (Streets had different names in old Georgetown; this corner then would have been called “Fayette and First.”) This school prospered until 1829, when it was closed.
1831	The boys of Holy Trinity parish got a second chance for a parish school, after Fenwick, who had since become Bishop of Boston, made a visit to Georgetown. The bishop, disheartened to find that the school had been disbanded, pleaded for more financial support, which he received from both the Holy Trinity Parish and the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus. Fortunately, the municipality of Georgetown also voted to provide an annual subsidy to the school – an early instance of public support for parochial education.
1871	After the new Holy Trinity Church was built in 1851, pastor Father John DeWolf S.J. decided to convert the old church (our current Chapel), into a school building. The structure was remodeled to include three classrooms on the second floor; it had a hall and a gymnasium on the first floor. The building could accommodate nearly 200 boys for weekday classes.
1902	Holy Trinity pastor Father James Mulvaney, S.J., arranged for the Sisters of Mercy to teach at the school. Three years later, their duties were taken over by the Sisters of Providence from Immaculata Seminary in Tennallytown (near the present Tenley Circle area.)
1916	Holy Trinity parishioners had dreamed for many years of constructing a new school building for both the boys and girls. (The girls had been studying at St. Joseph’s school, located on the grounds of present-day Georgetown Visitation.) This dream of a new building did not become a reality until after Father Eugene McDonnell, S.J. became pastor in 1916. Father McDonnell arrived from St. Aloysius Church, where he had served as pastor and had supervised the construction of Gonzaga College High School’s main building. He led a fundraising campaign that made the construction of the new school buildings on 36th Street possible.
1918	503 students were registered to begin classes at the new Holy Trinity School. A brochure announcing the school’s opening described it: “The class rooms… are the wonder of all who see them. No finer could be imagined. Flooded with light and air and looking over the beautiful grounds of Georgetown College and the Visitation Convent, their position, size and equipment are ideal.” That year, all the teachers but one were nuns. Tuition would be free for Catholic children of Holy Trinity parish. Otherwise, tuition would be one dollar per month.When classes began in 1918, both boys and girls studied in the O Street building, because the Federal government had requisitioned the N Street building for wartime use. In early October, the influenza epidemic forced the school to close, but it reopened after six weeks.
1919	The boys moved into the N Street building, and the boys and girls were separated for one year.
1920	When a two year girls’ business school (precursor of the four year high school started in 1922) moved into the O Street building, the elementary school boys and girls were both in the N Street buildings again, and Holy Trinity would remain the truly coeducational school it is today.
1950s &1960s	By the 1950s and 60s, Holy Trinity had put down strong roots in the neighborhood, often going back several generations. Mary Ann Sherman Castagnetti (Class of 1956) says: “you knew everyone in the neighborhood, and almost all of the Catholic children went to Holy Trinity.
1968	The Sisters of Mercy left Holy Trinity to staff the newly established Our Lady of Mercy school in Montgomery County. Holy Trinity Pastor Thomas P. Gavigan, S.J., arranged for the Sisters of St. Joseph of Chestnut Hill to staff Holy Trinity.
1979	The Sisters of St. Joseph decided they could not provide principals for all the schools they staffed; they would continue sending three teaching sisters to Holy Trinity, but the school would have to find its own lay principal. Thus, Ann Marie Santora (later Crowley) became the first lay principal of Holy Trinity School. She would serve as principal until 2008. In 1979, the main school office, grades 5-8 and the art room moved over to the old girls high school building and this became the Upper School. The Early Childhood Program, Grades 1-4 and the library remained in what was then dubbed the Lower School.
1983	A second seventh grade homeroom was added and a second eighth grade homeroom the following year. The second sixth grade homeroom was not added until the late 1980’s.
With thanks to Betsy Morgan Moyer, who wrote “The History of Holy Trinity School 1818-1993.”

 

Updated:  August 2011