Bicentennial Marker Installed

On Sunday, September 9, 2003, an Ohio Bicentennial Marker was dedicated on the grounds of St. Mary of the Springs. The Marker honors both St. Mary's Academy, which educated young women from 1830 (Somerset, Ohio) through its closing in 1966 (Columbus), and famous Academy alumna Anne O'Hare McCormick. The event took place on the 135th anniversary of the opening of the Academy in Columbus, where the school moved in 1868 after a devastating fire. For more information about the event, the Academy, Anne O'Hare McCormick and more, click on the links below.

Text of the Historical Marker

Saint Mary of the Springs Academy

Anne O’Hare McCormick
1880 – 1954

On this site stood St. Mary of the Springs Academy, a school for girls first founded by the Dominican Sisters in 1830 in Somerset, Ohio, to respond to the educational needs of frontier Catholics. The school had operated in Somerset until 1866, when a devastating fire destroyed the buildings. The Sisters occupied borrowed space until Theodore Leonard, a Columbus businessman, offered them land and bricks to rebuild in Columbus. The Sisters accepted, and Leonard built St. Mary’s Academy in Columbus in 1868. To reflect the natural springs on the property, “of the Springs” was added to the name . The Academy closed in 1966.

In 1937, Anne O'Hare McCormick became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for foreign correspondence. She was born in Yorkshire, England and moved to Ohio as a child. She was educated at the Academy of St. Mary of the Springs. As a freelance writer, McCormick contributed to the Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times, and others. She became a regular correspondent for the Times in 1922 and was the first woman to join its editorial board in 1936. As a Times correspondent in Europe during the tumultuous years before and during the World War II, she conducted interviews with leaders including Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Neville Chamberlin, Winston Churchill, and Josef Stalin.

St. Mary of the Springs Academy

In 1830, at the request of Bishop Fenwick, OP, of Cincinnati, four members of the Kentucky Dominicans left for Somerset, Ohio, to found St. Mary’s Academy, one of the first Catholic schools in Ohio. The sisters arrived at Somerset on February 5, 1830. This Academy offered education to pioneer children of Catholics and non-Catholics. Mother Angela Gillespie, first Mother General of the Holy Cross Sisters in America, was educated here, as was her cousin Ellen Ewing, wife of General William Tecumseh Sherman, and General Phil Sheridan’s sister.

In 1866, a devastating fire consumed the St. Mary’s Academy buildings, leaving the sisters with nothing but spared lives. The sisters occupied borrowed space for two years until Theodore Leonard, a Columbus businessman who had five daughters to educate, offered the sisters land and bricks on his old brickyard if they would build an academy in Columbus. The sisters traveled by covered wagon to found St. Mary’s Academy in Columbus in 1868. Bishop Watterson suggested the name change to St. Mary of the Springs to reflect the preponderance of natural springs on the property. The Academy operated in its new Columbus location until its closing in 1966.

Anne O'Hare McCormick

Anne O'Hare McCormick, an 1898 graduate of St. Mary of the Springs Academy, was chosen as a subject for the historical marker by the Ohio Bicentennial Commission. Ms. McCormick received her ormal education at the Academy from 1893 until 1898 (for information about life at St. Mary of the Springs at that time, click here). She retained connections to the school and, through a correspondence spanning several decades, to a beloved teacher, Mother Stephanie Mohun, OP.

Ms. McCormick, who received honorary degrees from 17 prestigious colleges and universities, including St. Mary of the Springs College and The Ohio State University, received her sole diploma from the Academy. She graduated with honors on Wednesday, June 22, 1898, delivering the Graduating Essay, “The Worship of Beauty.”

In a luminous career as a journalist, Ms. McCormick became the first woman journalist to receive the Pulitzer Prize in 1937 as the most distinguished foreign correspondent. She was noted “for her brilliant and accurate work as a correspondent specializing in international affairs.” In addition, she was the first woman to become a member of the New YorkTimes editorial board. In June, 1939, she was nominated by the National Business and Professional Women’s Club at the New York World’s Fair as one of the most outstanding women in America and selected as “The Woman of 1939.”

Ms. McCormick’s professional awards and accolades span two decades. Among other awards, she received the prestigious Laetare Award from the University of Notre Dame in 1944.

She interviewed world leaders such as Winston Churchill, Benito Mussolini, and Joseph Stalin, and wrote her daily column, “Abroad,” for the New York Times. She was part of the press corps covering the Potsdam Conference. Aboard ship with President Harry Truman on the return trip, she was present when he announced to the press that the first atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima.

She was married in 1910 to Dayton businessman, Francis J. McCormick. In 1928, she donated a copy of her only published book, The Hammer and Scythe, to the Dominican Sisters with the inscription: "To St. Mary's of the Springs, from one of its grateful children." That book and her private collection are housed in the rare book room of Ohio Dominican University. A lifelong Catholic, her strong religious convictions greatly influenced her views throughout her career.

Upon her death in 1954, Catholic World magazine noted that she “had a warm sympathy for suffering and a cold hatred for tyranny.”

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