Air", the estate belonged to the late John Rudolph, a merchant of Burlington, New Jersey and Philadelphia. The school, which was called the "Augustinian College of Villanova", opened in 1842. Besides the novitiate and college, the Augustinians had pastoral care of Catholics living within a fifteen-mile radius. Bishop Francis Kenrick dedicated the chapel in 1844. Parishes at Berwyn, Bryn Mawr, and Wayne developed from the Villanova mission.
However, the Philadelphia Nativist Riots of 1844 that burned Saint Augustine's Church in Philadelphia caused financial difficulties for the Augustinians, and the college was closed in February 1845. The college reopened in 1846 and graduated its first class in 1847. In March 1848, the governor of Pennsylvania incorporated the school and gave it the power to grant degrees. In 1859, the first master's degree was conferred. In 1857, the school closed again as the demand for priests in Philadelphia prevented adequate staffing, and the crisis of the Panic of 1857 strained the school …
