Roman Catholic Saint. When she was canonized in 1975 by Pope Paul VI, she was the first native-born United States citizen to be named a saint by the Roman Catholic Church. She was born in New York City and given the name Elizabeth Ann, two years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, to Dr. Richard and Catherine Bayley, both devout Episcopalians. At the age of nineteen, she was married to a prosperous merchant, William Seton. The marriage produced five children. The Setons were soon bankrupt, followed by the death of William from tuberculosis after a long sea voyage to Italy. She found herself a widow in a foreign country. Upon her return, Elizabeth converted to the Catholic faith and took up teaching in order to support her family. Archbishop John Carroll of Baltimore invited her to establish a school for girls in his diocese. Other young women joined her, and they formed a religious community, the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph. In 1809, they set up a school in Emmitsburg, Maryland, where she was referred to as Mother Seton. Along with the members of her order, her family also lived at the newly-formed convent and school. Stricken with tuberculosis, death claimed her life at the young age of 46. She was buried on the property. Both of her sons were at sea at the time of her death and burial. When they returned six months later, they gave a substantial donation for the building of a mortuary chapel. Upon completion in 1846, Mother Seton was transferred there. At the time of her beatification in March 1963, she was exhumed. Her remains were placed in a small copper casket and enshrined above the altar in St. Joseph's College Chapel. Five years later, a special shrine was built in 1965 at St. Joseph's Provincial House of the Daughters of Charity at Emmitsburg, Maryland, in anticipation of her canonization. Her remains were transferred and now rest beneath the altar. In 1975, she was proclaimed a saint during ceremonies at Vatican City before some 15,000 Americans. Mother Seton founded the first parochial school in America and at the same time the first Catholic order of nuns in the United States, which, at the time of the canonization, numbered over 8,000 sisters in six communities on three continents.