Site of Ursuline Convent and Academy

Seven nuns came to Galveston in 1847, and the school they opened became a base for Texas. By the Handbook's account, Galveston sisters helped found the San Antonio academy in 1851 and took part in opening the Laredo school in 1868. Six more under Mother Joseph Holly began the Dallas academy on February 2, 1874, the first Catholic school in what is now the Dallas diocese. A group went to Pecos in 1930 to regain their health and stayed until 1973. Galveston is where the Ursulines first took root in Texas.

What the plaque says

Site of Ursuline Convent and Academy Seven nuns of the Ursuline order from New Orleans arrived in Galveston on January 19, 1847, sent at the request of Bishop Jean Marie Odin. By February 1847 the nuns established a convent and academy in the two-story former home of Judge James W. Love. The school opened with 25 students. Later some pupils boarded at the school. A hurricane struck Galveston in 1853, followed by a yellow fever epidemic. The nuns opened the academy to orphaned children. The frame structure was destroyed by fire in 1854, and the nuns obtained funding by subscription to build a brick structure in 1855. That facility also became a place of refuge after several outbreaks of yellow fever. During the Civil War, the nuns nursed soldiers from both sides of the conflict there. A new Ursuline Academy was designed by noted Galveston architect Nicholas J. Clayton in the 1890s. The massive Gothic structure provided shelter during many storms until 1961, when hurricane Carla damaged the school beyond repair. In 1964 a new Ursuline Academy was dedicated; It later became a junior high school campus. The old Ursuline Convent was razed in 1974. (1996)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• 1859 Ashton Villa — 0.4 mi
  A brick Italianate house on Broadway, built with enslaved labor in 1859, whose lawn has held Galveston's Juneteenth commemoration of General Orders, No. 3 every year since 1979.
• Moody Mansion — 0.4 mi
  A four-story, 28,000-square-foot house on Broadway, finished in 1895, that W. L. Moody Jr. bought just after the 1900 storm and his family kept until Hurricane Alicia in 1983.
• The Strand — 0.8 mi
  Five blocks of iron-front brick buildings near the harbor that were once called the Wall Street of the Southwest, emptied after 1900 and brought back by preservationists from the 1960s.
• 1892 Bishop's Palace — 0.9 mi
  Nicholas Clayton's stone house on Broadway for the railroad lawyer Walter Gresham, later home to Galveston's Catholic bishops and one of the most admired Victorian houses in the country.

More markers nearby

• Jack Johnson — steps away
• Olga Samaroff — steps away
• Public Education for Blacks in Galveston — steps away
• Avenue L Missionary Baptist Church — 0.2 mi