Site of Liberty's Ursuline Convent

Five Ursuline sisters reached Liberty on February 11, 1859, four from France and one from Quebec, and began in a cottage owned by Mrs. Gillard, according to the county historical commission chair's 2022 history. The school filled with boarders and fifty day students until the Civil War cut attendance. In June 1866 money the convent expected from a trust in France was lost to bad investments, and it closed. Fathers Jean Joseph and Claude Michael Martiniere opened Trinity College on the site on January 15, 1867.

What the plaque says

Site of Liberty's Ursuline Convent In 1859 Bishop John Mary Odin sent a group of Ursulines from Galveston to Liberty to establish a convent and girls' school. Under the leadership of an energetic French nun, Mother Ambroise, the Sisters bought land at this site and erected two frame buildings. Many prominent Liberty families enrolled their daughters in the convent school, as boarders or day students. The turmoil of the Civil War (1861-1865) caused attendance to decline, and the institution closed in 1866. Occupied by two other academies in the late 1860s, the Ursuline buildings were dismantled in the 1880s. (1978)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Houston Regional Library and Research Center — 4.0 mi
  A state archives and museum north of Liberty with an exhibit on Southeast Texas history and a campus of historic buildings, including an 1848 house and an 1898 church.
• San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site — 27 mi
  The 1,200 acres of coastal prairie and marsh where the Texas Revolution ended in eighteen minutes, and the 567-foot shaft of fossil-studded limestone that has stood over them since 1939.

More markers nearby

• Seven Pines — steps away
• Plaza Iglesia Parroquial (Parish Church Square) — steps away
• Plaza Constitucional (Municipal Square) — steps away
• James B. Woods — steps away