St. Mary's Academy

St. Mary's Academy is a Roman Catholic all-girls high school located in Portland, Oregon, United States. It was founded by twelve sisters from the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary in 1859. It is an all-girls school with approximately 750 students from northern Oregon and southwestern Washington. Since its founding, over 10,000 women have graduated from St. Mary's Academy, the oldest continuously-operating secondary school in Oregon.

St. Mary's was founded by twelve sisters from the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary in 1859, at the request of archbishop François Norbert Blanchet. Only two of the sisters spoke English; the others spoke French. They traveled from Montreal via ship and rail to Fort Vancouver where Blanchet had established a school on property he purchased from Daniel H. Lownsdale in 1857. The property had a two-story house, which became the school. St. Mary's opened in the same location with six female students on Monday, November 7, 1859, 17 days after they reached Portland.

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