Mother St. George and Bishop Benedict Fenwick envisioned a larger convent and school property, in a country setting, that would cater to Boston's wealthy (and primarily liberal Unitarian) upper class, who would thus fund the expansion of the Catholic mission in the area. In 1826, the Ursulines purchased land on Ploughed Hill (later called Convent Hill or Mount Benedict), in a section of Charlestown that is now in Somerville. A fine brick convent and school were built, with the sisters moving into the facility in 1827, and classes beginning in 1828. By 1834 there were 47 students, only six of whom were Catholic. According to Jenny Franchot, the author of a history of the riots, the lower classes of Boston, predominantly conservative Trinitarian Protestants, came to see the convent school as representing a union between two classes of people - upper class and Catholics - both of which they distrusted. The antipathy toward Catholics was fanned by anti-Catholic publications and by prominent preachers, including Lyman Beecher. Anti-Catholic violence occurred in Boston at a low level in the 1820s, with attacks on the homes of Irish Catholic laborers taking place in 1823, 1826, and 1828. Boston's mayor was petitioned in 1832 to take steps against the recurring violence. Charlestown, then separate from Boston, was not immune to the sectarian violence, seeing several attacks on Irish Catholics in 1833. Its population of about 10,000 was predominantly lower class Protestant laborers. Specific acts of violence committed against the convent and the Catholic establishment in Charlestown included the killing of one of its dogs in 1829, the burning of its stable in 1830, and the destruction of an Irish bar in 1833 by Protestant rioters. There was also simmering hostility over the establishment of a Catholic cemetery on nearby Bunker Hill, with local Protestants agitating that it be closed. These tensions were further heightened by a court case concerning the cemetery, in which the district court ruled in 1833 in favor of the diocese and against a restrictive law enacted by Charlestown selectmen.