seminary church, Our Lady of Mercy, was built. The same year, Hughes convinced several Jesuit priests from the St. Mary's College in Kentucky to staff St. John's.
The college received its charter from the New York State Legislature in 1846, and the first Jesuits began to arrive about three months later. In the same year Hughes sold St. John's College to the Jesuits for $40,000. Hughes deeded the college over but retained title to the seminary property, which totaled about nine acres. In 1847, Fordham's first school in Manhattan opened. The school became the independently chartered College of St. Francis Xavier in 1861. It was also in 1847 that the American poet Edgar Allan Poe arrived in the village of Fordham and began a friendship with the college Jesuits that would last throughout his life. In 1849, he published his famed work The Bells. Some traditions credit the college's church bells as the inspiration for this poem. Poe also spent considerable time in the college's library, and even occasionally stayed …
