St. Mary Hospital was opened on January 8, 1863 as a community hospital by the Poor Sisters of St. Francis, a religious congregation founded in 1845 in Germany. The hospital was opened during the American Civil War as a location to treat the returning wounded and was the second hospital ever to open in the State of New Jersey and is now its longest operating. The Sisters purchased five lots at Fourth and Willow Streets for this purpose. The money to pay for the land was raised though donations. The Stevens family, through the efforts of Martha Bayard Stevens, donated additional land and endowed a St. Martha's Ward to the new hospital.
One of St. Mary's more notable patients was New York City MayorWilliam Jay Gaynor, who was shot on August 9, 1910, as he boarded the SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse at the Hoboken piers. The assailant was James J. Gallagher, who had been fired from his job in the New York City Docks Department and who blamed the mayor for his troubles. Gaynor was rushed to St. Mary Hospital where he stayed for over three weeks in critical condition, before he was released. He lived for another three years, continuing to serve as Mayor, until his sudden death as a result of the attack.
When America entered World War I in 1917, the United States government took over the operation of St. Mary Hospital. Since Hoboken was the a main port of the New York Port of Embarkation through which nearly two million soldiers passed, the hospital became known as "Embarkation Hospital Number One." After the war, the Army returned the hospital to the Franciscan Sisters. In 1927, St. Mary opened one of the first tuberculosis clinics in the State. During the Great Depression, the Sisters opened a soup kitchen that fed 200 to 300 people twice a day. This facility remained open for many years.
Acquisition by Bon Secours
After nearly 140 years of operation, St. Mary Hospital was sold to the Bon Secours Health System, Inc. in 2000 by the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor, who had split off from the German congregation. That following year, Bon Secours formed a partnership with Canterbury Health, a company that owned the Episcopalian-affiliated Christ Hospital in Jersey City at the time. The union ended on December 31, 2004, however, after Canterbury claimed that Bon Secours had not disclosed the true financial health of St. Francis Hospital in Jersey City as well as that of St. Mary.
Acquisition by CarePoint Health
The Bon Secours Health Care System was unable to stem the financial losses in operating the facility. They worked out an agreement with the City of Hoboken to purchase the hospital and assume all its debts. This occurred in 2007, at which time the hospital was renamed to the one it currently has. The hospital was sold again in 2011 after it appeared that the City of Hoboken would become liable for $52 million in bonds which it had floated to keep the hospital open.
