Presentation Academy

Madeleine Le Conniat, born in Brittany in 1816 and known as Mother Mary Hyacinth, came to central Louisiana in 1855 with nine other Daughters of the Cross at Bishop Auguste Martin's invitation. 64 Parishes says she struggled with the heat, her limited English and slavery, yet she eventually bought an enslaved person to work the convent's land. The war brought shortages and falling enrollment, and the convents were looted and damaged during the Battle of Mansura. The French motherhouse withdrew support in 1867, and she went back to France to start a novitiate.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tunica-Biloxi Museum — 0.4 mi
  The Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana's own museum at Marksville, built around the Tunica Treasure that the tribe won back in court.
• Avoyelles Parish Courthouse: Solomon Northup Marker — 1.5 mi
  The Marksville courthouse where Solomon Northup was freed in January 1853, with a marker and a 2026 bronze that shows him rising from the mud.
• Epps House: Solomon Northup's Gateway to Freedom — 21 mi
  The Creole cottage Solomon Northup helped build for the man who enslaved him, moved twice and now a small museum on the LSU Alexandria campus.
• Arna Bontemps African American Museum — 27 mi
  The restored Alexandria house where the Harlem Renaissance writer Arna Bontemps was born in 1902, on the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail.

More markers nearby

• Tunica-Biloxi Indian Reservation — 0.3 mi
• The Marksville Site — 0.6 mi
• Holy Ghost Catholic Church — 1.2 mi
• Holy Ghost Catholic School — 1.3 mi