Founders and History

On October 15, 1856, two Swiss diocesan priests, Fr. Francis Haas and Fr. Bonaventure Frey, arrived in Mount Calvary, Wisconsin. They had come from Switzerland with no funding, no Capuchin background themselves, and no sponsorship from the Capuchin leadership, to establish the Capuchin Order in the United States. They long desired to devote their lives to missionary work, perhaps in China, but they admired the Capuchins in their homeland so much that they decided instead to dedicate themselves to spreading the Capuchin way of life.

History tells us that Mt. Calvary reminded the priests so much of their home in Switzerland that they chose that location over others in the area. They began building a small friary and they induced the Swiss Province of Capuchins to send two Capuchins to join them in Mount Calvary. Fr. Francis and Fr. Bonaventure themselves entered the Capuchin Order.

The first few years were difficult, but eventually the small community grew. St. Lawrence Seminary opened its doors for the first time in the fall of 1860. The Convent Latin School, as St. Lawrence Seminary was then called, had four students in its first class and charged the sum of ten dollars for tuition, room and board! By the fall of 1862, fifteen students were enrolled and twenty students began the next academic year. In 1864 a college wing was added to the friary and the student enrollment reached forty-nine students. Yet another college wing was added in 1867. The friary and college was now a quadrangle with a courtyard in the center. The 1868 school year opened with twenty-eight Capuchin friars and forty-two students in the newly completed friary and college.

Tragedy struck on Christmas night of 1868. A fire started in the sacristy and burned the entire complex to the ground with the exception of part of the parish church. Almost miraculously, the school reopened the following fall in a completely rebuilt friary and college. It was now called the Little Seminary of Saint Lawrence of Brindisi. In 1872 another college building, Saint Joseph Hall, was erected. In 1881, the Laurentianum, the current main building, was built to include ample classroom space.

By the time Fr. Francis died in 1895, having lived to see his dream of founding the Capuchin Order in the United States, Saint Lawrence College was a respected educational institution. Fr. Bonaventure was present at the fiftieth anniversary of the Capuchin Foundation in the United States at Mount Calvary. When he died in 1912, his beloved St. Lawrence College was firmly established as a major educational institution in the Midwestern United States. Both had lived long enough to see their dream fulfilled—the founding of St. Lawrence Seminary High School.

From this humble beginning, St. Lawrence Seminary has kept its doors open constantly and continues in existence today as the largest residential high school seminary in the United States.