Father David consulted with Father Bruté, advisor to Mother Seton, in beginning a community of women that would educate girls and young women on the Kentucky frontier. In 1812, he sought volunteers to begin a religious order to serve the pioneers in Kentucky. In January 1813, nineteen-year-old Catherine, accompanied by her uncle, arrived at St. Thomas Seminary farm in Nelson County, Kentucky to join twenty-four-year-old Teresa Carrico, and Elizabeth Wells, aged 36. Father David gave the women the rule of St. Vincent de Paul as followed in Emmitsburg.