William McSherry was an American Catholic priest and Jesuit who became the president of Georgetown College and a Jesuit provincial superior. The son of Irish immigrants, McSherry was educated at Georgetown College, where he entered the Society of Jesus. As one of the first Americans to complete the traditional Jesuit course of training, he was sent to Rome to be educated for the priesthood. There, he made several discoveries of significant, forgotten holdings in the Jesuit archives, which improved historians' knowledge of the early European settling of Maryland and of the language of Indian tribes there.
Portrait of William McSherry
Georgetown College in 1829
St. Stanislaus Novitiate in Frederick was established in 1833.
McSherry Hall was renamed Anne Marie Becraft Hall in 2017.
On June 19, 1838, the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus agreed to sell 272 slaves to two Louisiana planters, Henry Johnson and Jesse Batey, for $115,000. This sale was the culmination of a contentious and long-running debate among the Maryland Jesuits over whether to keep, sell, or free their slaves, and whether to focus on their rural estates or on their growing urban missions, including their schools.
The Jesuits arguing in favor of a sale wanted to focus on their urban missions, including Georgetown College.
First page of the manifest of slaves carried aboard the Katherine Jackson to Louisiana
Thomas F. Mulledy was rebuked by many of his fellow Jesuits following the sale.
Frank Campbell (top) was sold by the Jesuits