Bishop John Carroll founded Georgetown University in 1789, the oldest Jesuit and oldest Catholic university in the United States.
Georgetown was founded by Bishop John Carroll, a member of one of Maryland's oldest Catholic families. Maryland had been the only colonial American province founded with religious tolerance as an explicit principle — a refuge for Catholics persecuted in England. Carroll chose this height above the Potomac for practical reasons: fresh air, water access, a defensible position.
The university's early students included sons of prominent Maryland and Virginia Catholic families, as well as Protestant students from the beginning. Andrew Jackson's secretary of state, Martin Van Buren's vice president, and many early American diplomats were educated here.
In 2016, Georgetown confronted a painful truth from its own history. In 1838, the university sold two hundred seventy-two enslaved people to Louisiana plantation owners to pay off the institution's debts and ensure its survival. The sale generated the equivalent of approximately three point three million dollars today. Georgetown students later voted to establish a recurring fee to fund a reconciliation and reparations fund for the descendants of those enslaved people.
The main building — Healy Hall, built in 1879 — is one of the great examples of Flemish Romanesque architecture in America. Its tower dominates the Georgetown skyline.
The university has produced senators, CIA directors, Supreme Court Justices, and a president of the United States. It sits on the same hill where George Washington's troops once camped.