Saint Peter Public Schools history

In 1832, they purchased a parish house at 319 Lombard Street.

The origins of St Peter’s Boys High School can be traced back to 1839, with the dedication of St Peter’s parish.

St Peter Parish was established in 1843, the oldest church on the Northshore.

In 1854, St Peter School was established with the construction of a small brick school near the church.

The first four sisters arrived on January 6, 1868 and the following Monday school opened with an enrollment of 38 pupils.

Attendance flourished, and in 1870, the School expanded into a new building on Lombard Street.

In 1872, a boy's school was constructed where the current school stands, but as enrollment grew rapidly, a larger facility was planned.

When classes first started in Jersey City on September 2, 1878, seventy-one students originally enrolled in the Preparatory Department.

As more students arrived, work began on a new school building on Grand Street in 1899 (pictured right).

The influence of the Benedictine sisters expanded when they built a convent and founded St Scholastica Academy in 1903.

In 1915, a hurricane destroyed the old church building, but it was immediately rebuilt.

With the arrival of three Christian Brothers in 1917, the school was founded on Richmond Terrace.

In 1922, a two-story frame school was built on the present day school property on Theard Street to accommodate the growing enrollment of 140 students.

Saint Peter’s reopened in 1930 on the fourth floor of the Chamber of Commerce Building in downtown Jersey City, and women were admitted to the Evening Session for the first time.

By 1933, the College had made serious efforts to move from downtown Jersey City to its present site on the former Edward Young estate.

In 1937, the main campus of St Peter’s Boys High School was designated as a junior college of Manhattan College, another Lasallian institution.

By 1943, the junior college closed and St Peter’s Boys High School relocated to the corner of Clinton and Henderson Avenues, where it remains to this day.

Since the mid-1950’s, St Peter Catholic School has continued to grow and thrive.

The high school served until the founding of Helias Interparish High School in 1955.

Vogelweid in the 1950's and was named in his honor in 1983. Thus in September, 1964, the Vogelweid Learning Center began.

In 1965, the Archdiocese of New York agreed to assist in the funding of a new gymnasium, which would also serve as the school’s auditorium.

While families always played an integral role in St Peter’s School’s history, the School’s Parents’ Association was officially founded in 1966.

Caroline E. Seamans was appointed the first full-time Head of School in 1967.

In 1969, the School was legally separated from St Peter’s Church and was incorporated with its own Board of Trustees as an independent and non-sectarian school.

In 1975 Saint Peter’s established a branch campus, a “college for adults,” in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, and began working to improve the Jersey City campus, with renovations that included the conversion of the grass quad into the concrete quad on campus today.

The College offered its first graduate program in education in 1980.

Project 2000, a capital campaign, allowed the school to add new laboratory facilities, a computer center, library, administrative and guidance offices.

Saint Peter’s College celebrated its 130th Anniversary in 2002.

In 2005, a large addition to the school was begun, including several classrooms, a cafeteria, multipurpose facility/gymnasium, elevator, band room, art room and restrooms.

In the fall of 2010 a Preschool was opened in the Vogelweid building.

The School formally purchased its home at 319 Lombard from St Peter’s Church in October 2016.

In 2017, St Peter’s celebrated our 100-year anniversary as Staten Island’s oldest Catholic high school for young men.