Convent

The town took its name from a school for girls, and the school ran on enslaved labor. The Religious of the Sacred Heart opened the convent in 1825 and taught girls there until 1932; records show the convent and Jefferson College both relied on enslaved workers before the Civil War. Before that the settlement was called Baron, and it has been the parish seat since 1869. A century after the sisters came, the riverfront belonged to industry: Shell's Convent refinery processed up to 239,000 barrels a day with more than a thousand workers before it closed in 2020.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Whitney Plantation — 11 mi
  A museum on a former sugar plantation along the River Road that tells its story through the people who were enslaved there, with memorials to 107,000 enslaved Louisianans and 2,200 children.
• E. D. White Historic Site — 14 mi
  A National Historic Landmark house of about 1790 on Bayou Lafourche, built by enslaved people and home to two Whites, a governor and a Chief Justice, with an exhibit on the bayou's history.
• Wetlands Acadian Cultural Center — 15 mi
  A Jean Lafitte National Historical Park center on Bayou Lafourche with Acadian and bayou-life exhibits, a 200-seat theater and ranger-guided boat tours to the E. D. White house.
• Laurel Valley Village — 15 mi
  A sugar plantation's workers' village south of Thibodaux, with cabins of about 1845, shotgun houses, a store and cemetery, and the 1887 strike and massacre in the parish around it.

More markers nearby

• Judge Poché Plantation House Historical Marker — steps away
• Young Pilgrim Baptist Church — 0.3 mi
• Site of First Acadian Settlers in Louisiana — 0.9 mi
• St. Jacques de Cabahanoce — 0.9 mi