On March 11, 1851, Mother Frances Xavier Warde, the American Founder of the Sisters of Mercy, accompanied by four sisters arrived in Providence, Rhode Island. The small group had made a the long trip from Pittsburgh by coach. The journey required courage. This small group of sisters was leaving a large, well-organized community and steadfast friends among the clergy and laity, to create a new home in a new town where the Church was struggling for existence and where prejudices against it were strong and deep.

The spirit of anti-Catholicism generated by the Know-Nothings was so rampant that Bishop Bernard O'Reilly, who had asked the sisters to come to Providence, dared not welcome them with any fanfare. The Know-Nothings were a secret political party that discriminated against immigrants and members of the Roman Catholic Church. Making their way into the Rhode Island capital under the cover of night, the sisters, who were attired in lay clothing, founded the first permanent Mercy convent in New England. The sisters settled in a small, wooden house on High Street, later named St. Francis Xavier Convent in honor of Frances Warde. Today, the sisters celebrate Foundation Day on March 12, the day the first Mass was celebrated in the new convent.

Visitation of the sick began immediately and within a month the tiny convent was opened as St. Xavier Academy for girls. Some months later, a larger building, the Stead estate on the corner of Broad and Claverick Streets, was purchased and St. Xavier Convent and Academy moved there. St. Xavier's was home to the sisters until 1894. The original building also housed an orphanage where twelve girls lived. Within six months of their arrival at St. Xavier's fifteen women had joined the Community.

The presence of the new sisters increased the hostility of the Know-Nothings and members of the Community were often subjected to violence. The persecution came to a climax during the spring of 1855 when posters appeared in the city announcing that St. Xavier's would be attacked on March 22. The Bishop and the Mayor of Providence headed off the attack with 400 supporters, who responded to protect the convent.

Safely established in Providence, the sisters were now free to go about their work of bringing Mercy into the lives of those around them. The sisters established schools and offered classes for adults. They also cared for orphans and went about visiting prisoners, the sick and those who were poor. In addition to the many local groups and institutions that asked the Mercy Community in Providence to assist them, requests for sisters began coming in from across the country and from different parts of the world.

The first request came in 1857, when Bishop Byrne of Little Rock, Arkansas asked the sisters to establish a convent in his city. Other sisters from Providence established convents and Communities in Rochester, New York; Manchester, NH; St. Augustine, FL; Columbus, GA; Nashville, TN; St. George's Bay, Newfoundland; Fall River, MA; Hartford, CT; and New Bedford, MA. The Belize Community of the Sisters of Mercy became part of the Providence Community in 1931. The first foundation in Honduras opened in 1959 at Maria Regina Convent in La Ceiba. Sisters from Providence and Belize opened a school there and began a nursing program at the local hospital, Hospital Vincente D'Antoni.