When the Sisters of Mercy arrived in Vicksburg in 1860 to open the first school in the area, they had little idea that one day their school and convent buildings would be bombarded by enemy artillery, filled with dead and dying soldiers, and would launch the Sisters of Mercy on a new path providing health care in Mississippi that endured to this day.
The St. Francis Xavier Convent was placed on the US National Register of Historic Places in 1977. In 1993 it was named as a contributing building in the US National Register Uptown Vicksburg Historic District in downtown Vicksburg MS.
From the St. Francis Xavier Convent Nomination Form, from the Mississippi Department of History and Archives website: (
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"Located at 1021 Crawford Street in downtown Vicksburg, Mississippi, is the Saint Francis Xavier Convent, an L-shaped, three-and-a-half-story Gothic Revival structure built in 1868. It was designed by Father Jean Baptist Mouton (1831- 1878), who was also the architect for churches and related buildings in Corinth, Columbus, luka, and Macon, Mississippi (Price, p. 104).
In spite of its Gothic trimmings, the convent's form is more closely related to the symmetrical Georgian fashion of seventy years earlier than to the picturesque variety of mass characteristic of the nineteenth century eclectic revivals. The structure is of brick laid in common bond with an all-stretcher veneer on the facade. A center gabled pavilion projects slightly from the building's mass and is elaborated by equilateral and lancet fenestration with trefoil transoms and corbeled sills.
Protecting the entrance is a three-bay porch made of clustered columns, supporting a freely designed arcade. Flanking the double leaf front door are a pair of niches. Remaining fenestrations on all elevations are regularly spaced, with six-over-six glazing, heavy label molds and bracketed sills.
The plan of the convent is derived from period domestic architecture, rather than from any specialized functional arrangement. A center stair hall running through the building is separated from an entrance vestibule by a carved wooden screen. Double parlors occupy the space west of the stair hall, and the chapel and chapel parlor are opposite. Interior woodwork consists of doors with four fielded panels, similar jambs and soffits, and wide architraves with large rolled backhands which return to become baseboard caps.
Typically, the staircase has a heavy octagonal newel, turned balusters and simple, scrolled step-ends. Original soapstone mantels remaining in the double parlors are designed with arched fire chambers and keystones. The chapel is the largest and most altered room in the convent. Originally, the north wall was divided into a three-bay arcade with sacristies in the end bays. In 1937, when an annex was constructed behind the chapel, the sacristies were relocated in it and the end bays were opened to become part of the sanctuary.
Incongruous ceiling and floor tiles have been installed recently, and the original chandeliers removed.
Existing pews date from 1946. The interior design of the basement and residential floors, which retains much of its original character, is sparse and strictly utilitarian.
SIGNIFICANCE
Saint Francis Xavier Convent is significant as one of the largest and best-preserved examples of Gothic Revival architecture in Vicksburg, Mississippi.
The Sisters of Mercy, for whom the convent was built, have exercised great influence in the state of Mississippi in the areas of education and public health during the past 116 years.
At the request of the Most Reverend William Henry Elden, bishop of Mississippi and the Reverend Francis Xavier Lerdy, pastor of St. Paul's Catholic Church, Vicksburg, six Sisters of Mercy arrived in Vicksburg on October 12, 1860. They purchased the John D. Cobb house directly west of the present convent for $8,000 and soon began a school for black and white students. With the advent of the Civil War, and the extended siege of Vicksburg in 1863, the Sisters turned their attention from education to the care of wounded soldiers. Not limiting their charitable activities to Vicksburg, they visited hospitals in other parts of Mississippi's well as in neighboring Alabama and Louisiana. Their convent was used as a barracks, first for the army of Confederate General John C. Pemberton before the surrender of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863, and later by Federal General Henry Slocum, before it was finally recovered by the Sisters on August 15, 1864. The school was reopened in September of that year.
The present convent building was constructed in 1868 at the cost of $30,000. It is one of the most significant designs of the Reverend Jean Baptist Mouton, whose other Mississippi works are also in the Gothic Revival style considered so appropriate for ecclesiastical architecture. Although Mouton relied on symmetry as the basis of his composition, specific Gothic motifs, such as the prominent label molds, trefoils, and pointed-arch fenestration, give the building's mass much needed variety and interest. The structure stands today as one of the finest and most prominent local examples of the Gothic Revival style.
The Sisters of Mercy expanded their educational service to Mississippi in the twentieth century by establishing schools in twelve communities throughout the state. In addition, the Sisters operated the Vicksburg City Hospital from 1878 to 1905. In 1943, the Sisters took over operation of the Vicksburg Sanatorium from which has grown the Mercy Regional Medical Center, one of the leading health facilities in the state. As in the past, the Sisters of Mercy continue to play a significant humanitarian role in Mississippi."