While the Sisters of Mercy are best known in Newport for sponsoring Salve Regina, they had been ministering in the city for almost a century before establishing the college. The first nuns to come to Newport, they arrived in 1854 to run St. Mary’s grammar school. In the years following, they established a high school at St. Mary’s, a grammar school in the Fifth Ward at St. Augustin’s, and the Mercy Home and School, an orphanage in the city’s north end. By the time Salve Regina opened in 1947, most Newport residents were very familiar with the Sisters of Mercy and well-disposed toward them.