President: 1829–1838 and 1845–1848.
Fr. Thomas F. Mulledy, S.J., served as Georgetown's17th president from 1829-1838 and 22th president from 1845-1848.
Early life
Born the son of Irish immigrants in Romney, Virginia (Hampshire County, present-day West Virginia) on August 12, 1795, Thomas F. Mulledy became one of the most significant leaders of the Catholic Church during the antebellum period.1 Educated at Georgetown College, Mulledy entered the White Marsh novitiate in Maryland on February 5, 1815 and ultimately returned to Georgetown to pursue his scholasticate studies and teach at Georgetown. In 1820, the Jesuit General Luigi Fortis selected Mulledy as one of several American scholasticates to study in Rome and prepare them to lead the consolidation of the Society in the United States.
Presidency, 1829-1838
When Father Mulledy became president, Georgetown was in decline. However, he proved to be an effective promoter of the College and rapidly increased enrollment. Congressmen and senators became regular visitors and Andrew Jackson, in his first year in the White House, enrolled his ward. Mulledy planned two new campus buildings: Gervase Hall which opened in 1831 to serve as the infirmary at a cost of $5800 and Isaac Hawkins Hall, a multi-purpose building, which cost $12000 and opened in 1833. Raising money to pay for the construction proved difficult and when Fr. Mulledy stepped down as President in 1838, the College was $48,000 in debt and on the verge of bankruptcy.
Involvement in the 1838 sale of enslaved people
After he returned in 1828, Mulledy helped Peter Kenney, S.J., the Special Visitor assigned by Jesuit General and Superior of the Mission of Maryland, to prepare a report that evaluated the operations of Jesuit schools, churches, and plantations. As Rector of Georgetown College (1828-1837) and Consultor (1828-1837), Mulledy strongly advocated that the Society sell the enslaved people who labored on the plantations to help finance the expansion of the newly-formed Maryland Province. Although this proposal divided the order, in 1836 Jesuit General Jan Roothan approved the sale, stipulating that families should not be separated and that their religious needs should be met. Soon after his appointment as Provincial in October 1837, Mulledy began to take steps to execute the plan. In June 1838, Mulledy arranged the sale of 314 men, women, and children to Jesse Batey, whose land holdings included a 2,800-acre estate in Maringouin, Iberville Parish, Louisiana, and Henry Johnson, a member of the U.S. Congress who was a former governor of Louisiana. Mulledy personally went with Johnson and local sheriffs to gather the enslaved men, women, and children from the four plantations and to transport them to the ship in Alexandria that took them to Louisiana. Without authorization from the Society, Mulledy used $24,000, most of the down payment for the sale, to reduce the debts of Georgetown College. As part of the University’s efforts to reconcile with this history, the campus building formerly known as Mulledy Hall was in 2017 officially renamed Isaac Hawkins Hall. Isaac Hawkins' name appears first on the Articles of Agreement drafted by Father Mulledy, S.J., to sell Hawkins and the other enslaved individuals.2
The controversy resulting from spectacle of the sale, the separation of families, and the unauthorized appropriation of money to the college led Mulledy to resign his position as Provincial and to travel to Rome to meet personally with Roothan who in turn assigned Mulledy to work with the English-speaking community in Nice, France.
Post-1838 career
Nevertheless Mulledy retained his reputation within the Maryland Province as a preacher, educator, and administrator. By November 1843, Mulledy returned to the United States to become the first president of Holy Cross College in Worcester, Mass.3 Nearly two years later, in September 1845, he returned to Georgetown College and served as its Rector until August 1848. Thereafter, he was stationed in Philadelphia; Frederick, Md.; Worcester, Mass.; Washington, D.C.; and Baltimore. He died at Georgetown on July 20, 1860.4
- 1R. Emmett Curran, The Bicentennial History of Georgetown University, vol. 1: From Academy to University (Washington, D.C. Georgetown University Press, 1993), 109-112, 116-121; Joseph Zwingé, S.J., “The Jesuit Farms in Maryland: Facts and Anecdotes The Negro Slaves,” Woodstock Letters (41:1912): 282-285
- 2"Georgetown to Rename Building for Isaac Hawkins, One of 272 Enslaved in 1838 Sale", April 13, 2017. https://www.georgetown.edu/news/georgetown-to-rename-building-for-isaac-hawkins-one-of-272-enslaved-in-1838-sale/
- 3“Rev. Thomas Mulledy, S.J.” College of Holy Cross https://www.holycross.edu/leadership/office-president-rev-philip-l-boroughs-sj/past-presidents/thomas-mulledy
- 4Catalogues of the Mission and Province of Maryland, 1828-1860, Catalogues of New Society of Jesus, Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu (ARSI) https://arsi.jesuits.global/en/repertories/catalogs-of-new-society-of-jesus/
