Heritage

As the dream grew closer to God, it seemed as if the hill did, too.

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 for the purpose of establishing the Capuchin Order in the United States. They began building a small friary and they induced the Swiss Province of Capuchins to send two Capuchins from Switzerland to join them in Mount Calvary. Fr. Francis and Fr. Bonaventure themselves entered the Capuchin Order.

In 1860, the Convent Latin School was opened as part of the friary. Four students enrolled. Tuition, room and board was ten dollars for the year. This marks the beginning of Saint Lawrence Seminary. In the fall of 1862, fifteen students were enrolled and twenty students began the following school year. In 1864, a college wing was added to the friary and the student enrollment reached forty-nine, and 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.