Rectory of the Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton

The eastern portion, only two windows wide, was built in 1793. James Watson, the wealthy merchant and importer who lived at 7 State Street, was one of the ambitious, early-rising group called the “Peep o’ Day Boys” who awoke before dawn to scan the harbor for incoming ships. The wooden columns on the porch of his house are said to be repurposed ship’s masts.

The distinctive western portion with its curved porch is attributed to John McComb Jr. and was added in 1806. The Watson House was once part of an elegant row of townhouses, but by the late nineteenth century when Father John Joseph Riordan bought the property for the Mission of Our Lady of the Rosary the street’s glory days were in the past. At the turn of the twentieth century an elevated train rattled just outside the house’s front windows. By the 1960s the property had so deteriorated that the Watson House was gutted inside and 8 State Street, where Elizabeth Seton had lived, was demolished.

Economic hardship and political unrest in Ireland drove mass emigration to America between the mid-19th and early 20th centuries, with women forming the majority of Irish emigrants. Alarmed by the dangers faced by young, single women departing from Queenstown, reformer Charlotte Grace O’Brien established the O’Brien Emigrants Home in 1882 and investigated conditions upon arrival in New York.

Her efforts led to the creation of the Mission of Our Lady of the Rosary at Castle Garden in 1884, which provided protection, housing, job placement, and guidance for Irish immigrant women. Over time, the Mission assisted tens of thousands of women, safeguarded arrivals from exploitation, and became a critical support system for Irish female immigrants entering New York.

Sturges and Shanley (a descendant of Mother Seton), designed a new church for the 8 State Street site in a style that drew from the Federal and Georgian periods to complement the Watson House next door. It is said that Sturges and Shanley planned the sanctuary to be reminiscent of a ballroom because of Elizabeth Seton’s love of dancing.