History

Mount Saint Joseph Academy, a girls' boarding school for elementary and high school students, opened on September 7, 1885. The Academy was founded by the Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Boston, to educate and prepare students with a sound secular education combined with Catholic religious instruction. Under the leadership of Mother Mary Regis, the Sisters had purchased the former Fresh Pond hotel in Cambridge and converted in into the academy for young ladies. When the school opened its doors, eleven students attended and the first graduating class consisted of three young ladies. In May 1891, moved from Cambridge to its present site in Brighton, Massachusetts. The formal opening and dedication of the new Academy in Brighton was held on the Feast of St. Joseph, March 19, 1892.

Since those early days, Mount Saint Joseph Academy has continued to grow and change. The school originally served girls from grades one through twelve, and provided dormitories for boarders. In the early 1950s, the elementary school was closed, and by the end of that decade, all boarding was discontinued. Since that time, Mount Saint Joseph Academy has served as a day high school for young women in grades nine through twelve. The faculty, which initially consisted of just four Sisters of Saint Joseph, has expanded to include professional members of religious congregations and lay people. Since 1884, the Sisters of Saint Joseph along with many dedicated lay women and men, have remained faithful to the mission of its founders, "to cultivate the intellect and make a special training of the heart."

Mount Saint Joseph Academy has been accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges since 1959, and prior to that date was accredited by the Archdiocese of Boston. As the Academy enters the twenty-first century, the same dedication to academic excellence that characterized the school from its inception is maintained as part of its future mission. The Academy's goals, embodied in its motto "Labor Omnia Vincit" or "Hard Work Overcomes All" are evidenced in the more than eight thousand graduates who have made commendable contributions to the Church and to the private and professional areas of society within the Boston Community and throughout the world.