Site of Ursuline Convent and Academy
Galveston, Galveston County, Texas
Marker Inscription
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.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In January 1847, seven Ursuline nuns arrived from New Orleans at a bishop's request and opened a convent and girls' academy in a former judge's home in Galveston, beginning with twenty-five students. Through hurricanes and repeated yellow fever epidemics the sisters sheltered orphans and, during the Civil War, nursed wounded soldiers from both sides. Later generations knew the towering Gothic academy designed by architect Nicholas Clayton, which stood as a place of refuge in storms until Hurricane Carla forced its end in 1961.
Why it matters
The Ursulines pioneered women's education on the Texas coast and served the island through war and disaster, embodying the outsized role of Catholic sisters in American schooling and care.
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Related people
- · Bishop Jean Marie Odin
- · Nicholas J. Clayton
Related events
- · Galveston yellow fever epidemics
- · Hurricane Carla
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Ursuline Convent in the Civil War
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Before Confederate forces recaptured Galveston on January 1, 1863, the Ursuline nuns refused to evacuate their convent. During and after the battle the building's east wing became a hospital treating wounded from both sides, and a mortally wounded Confederate lieutenant died in the arms of Mother St. Pierre Harrington. The Confederate medical director credited the sisters' "noble conduct" with saving lives.
Ursuline Nuns in Galveston
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In January 1847 seven Ursuline nuns — the first order of religious women in Texas — arrived in Galveston and opened a convent and academy, beginning with 25 pupils. For well over a century the sisters educated the island's youth while serving the wider community through catastrophe after catastrophe: their convent became a hospital during the yellow fever epidemics of 1847, 1853, 1858, and 1868, treated both Union and Confederate wounded during the Civil War, and sheltered more than a thousand people during the devastating 1900 hurricane. The last Ursuline sister left Galveston in 1993, closing an era of service that had lasted nearly 150 years.
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