Founding of Georgetown University

Date: January 23, 1789 • Location: Rosslyn, United States

Bishop John Carroll purchased a plot of land that would become the home of the future Georgetown University, the oldest Catholic university in the United States.

John Carroll was an American Catholic prelate who served as the nation's first Catholic bishop, overseeing the Diocese of Baltimore, then the only diocese in the nascent United States, from 1789 to 1815. He became Archbishop of Baltimore in 1808, up to which point Carroll had also administered the entire U.S. Catholic Church.