Four women found a teaching order in Baltimore

On 24 June 1828 four French and Kreyòl speaking Haitian women began their novitiate in Baltimore. Elizabeth Lange, born in Saint Domingue about 1784, had fled with her parents to Matanzas in Cuba before moving to Maryland, and she had been running a free school. Madeleine Balas taught in it. Rose Boegue was invited to join them. Almaide Duchemin, born in Baltimore to another refugee, was the youngest. Their constitution described a religious society of virgins and widows of colour whose purpose was the Christian education of coloured children. A refugee physician, Doctor Chatard, sold them their first house on Richmond Street for two thousand dollars, less than he had paid. Rome approved the congregation on 2 October 1831, which put it beyond the reach of a hostile bishop. Archbishop Samuel Eccleston later recommended that the sisters disband and take work as housekeepers for wealthy Maryland families.