In celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Southern Cultural Heritage Foundation (SCHF), we are highlighting the five buildings that make up the cultural center block. The second of the series features the Sisters of Mercy Convent, located on the northeast corner of Crawford and Adams streets. In 1860, six Sisters of Mercy moved to Vicksburg from Baltimore to establish a school, buying the John D. Cobb House on Crawford Street for their convent and school. They were not in the city long before they had to close their school and devote themselves to nursing injured and sick soldiers across the state. At the end of the war, they moved back into their home, but quickly realized that they had outgrown the Cobb House. 

On Aug. 2, 1868, the Vicksburg Herald reported that “we have heard with pleasure that it is designed by this order (Sisters of Mercy) to build a new home on the corner of Crawford and Adams streets in this city. In their works of charity and mercy it is found that the house which they at present occupy is insufficient to receive all the recipients of their loving care and charity. This house which they design erecting on the corner of Crawford and Adams, will be built during this summer, and it is designed to lay the corner stone with the usual ceremonies this evening at half past six o’clock.” 

The Herald praised the Sisters work during the “period which tried men’s souls,” explaining that “where there was the greatest amount of suffering and misery there was to be found members of this order exemplifying by their acts the name of their institution. They have been known in every house where care and misery had made their advent. The humble, the poor, and the afflicted offer up prayers for their safety and their welfare, for their hand of alleviation is always spread upon the brow of the sufferer.”

The new convent was designed by Father Jean Baptiste Mouton, who was born in France in 1831 and traveled to the United States as a missionary priest in 1855. According to the Yazoo Herald, “he had to encounter hardships of every description, dangers by ‘field and flood,’ in his travels from one Catholic habitation to another (including having his horse stolen in Columbus in 1867).  Undismayed by obstacles surrounding him, he persevered in his labors, with what success the Catholic churches of Corinth, Columbus, Macon, Louisville and many other places attest.” 

He eventually erected churches in Meridian, Iuka, Macon, Corinth and Yazoo City.  From about 1868-1871, he was one of two priests preaching at St. Paul Catholic Church in Vicksburg.  Mouton died at the age of 47 of Yellow Fever during the epidemic in 1878 while administering to the sick in Yazoo City. The Yazoo City Herald reporting about his death and lamented that “he was well known throughout east Mississippi, he was loved by all who knew him; people of every religious persuasion had a word of praise for the man who knew so well how to please all, without compromising principle.”

The cornerstone for the Sisters new Gothic Revival convent was laid on Aug. 2, 1868, an event that was witnessed by a large and deeply interested audience composed of all denominations and all classes of citizens, according to the Vicksburg Herald. 

“A commodious platform had been erected within the walls of the foundation and seats arranged for a large number of ladies and gentlemen. The services of the occasion were inaugurated by the Rev. Father F. X. Leray, who in a few well-chosen remarks announced the purpose for which they had met together.  He was followed by Col. W. H. McCarnle (sic), who spoke in terms of high commendation of the Sisters—their devotion to the cause of philanthropy and their heroic sacrifices upon the altar of charity and Christianity. The Fathers Leray and Bennett, followed by acolytes bearing the cross and crucifix and candles, proceeded to perform the ceremony, which consisted in depositing in the receptacle of the corner stone copies of the city papers, the names of the officers composing the city and State governments, several pieces of gold and silver coin, the names of architect and builder, and other mementoes usually deposited in corner stones of such structures. The ceremony was concluded by reading a prayer, making the sign of the cross, and sprinkling holy water over the corner stone.” 

Over the next few months, a number of fundraising concerts were given at the Apollo Hall for “the benefit of the convent now being built by the Sisters of Mercy.” In reporting one of the concerts in October 1868, the Vicksburg Herald stated that “during the four years of strife just passed, those ministering angels- truly Sisters of Mercy- soothed many a hero’s brow, and in the hospital and on the field of battle ministered to the comfort of the wounded and dying. Now they ask a small favor from all, and let it not be withheld.”  

In March 1869, the Herald reported that a large, beautiful yellow cross had been placed on top of the new convent building.

Many years later, after the Sisters of Mercy moved to new quarters and then moved St. Francis School to its new building, the block of buildings, including the convent, was sold to the City of Vicksburg, which, in turn, gave it to the Southern Cultural Heritage Foundation.  Today, 30 years later, the building continues to be in constant use and remains the cornerstone of the center’s five buildings.  

– Nancy Bell, Vicksburg Foundation for Historic Preservation.