PBA Galleries

Single leaf, approximately 7x6¾, from an account book reflecting payments for goods and services. Signed at lower right. Matted and framed with a modern portrait and a small encased First Class relic purportedly extracted from her remains.

The accounting, in a hand other than Seton's, for goods and services including Board and Tuition, Stationary, Shoes, Medicines, etc. Signed lower right: "E.A. Seton for the House of St Josephs". Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton (August 28, 1774 – January 4, 1821) was the first native-born United States citizen to be canonized. She was born to the prominent Bayley family of New York City, and raised in the Episcopal Church. At the age of nineteen, she married William Magee Seton, a wealthy business man. Five children were born to the marriage, which ended with her husband's death in 1803. Two years later she converted to Roman Catholicism. Elizabeth would go on to establish a community in Emmitsburg, Maryland dedicated to the care for the children of the poor. This was the first religious community of apostolic women founded in the United States. The remainder of her life was spent in leading and developing the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph's which she had founded, along with the Sulpician priests of Baltimore. Today six independent religious communities trace their roots to the humble beginnings of the Sisters of Charity in Emmitsburg, Maryland. On December 18, 1959, Elizabeth was declared Venerable by the Sacred Congregation of the Catholic Church. She was beatified by Pope John XXIII on March 17, 1963, and canonized by Pope Paul VI on September 14, 1975, making her the first native-born United States citizen to be canonized. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton is popularly considered a patron saint of Catholic schools. Seton's autograph is exceedingly rare, no examples have appeared at auction in at least 30 years.