Jewels from Jane,June 30

From the time that Carondelet was first settled in 1767, a piece of ground was reserved and religiously kept as the site of the future church [Sts. Mary and Joseph] and last resting place of the dead. When the town was surveyed and the blocks numbered, the church site became number eighty-two, and the cemetery ground fifty-seven. These two blocks, together with blocks fifty-eight and fifty-nine, which adjoined the cemetery on the south, were deeded to Father Saulnier [Pastor of Sts. Mary and Joseph Church] by the Trustees of the town on September 10, 1835.

Block number fifty-eight was the lot on which stood the log cottage given to the Sisters by Bishop Rosati. On June 30, 1838, a deed to this block was given to the Sisters by Father Saulnier. He had already sold block fifty-nine, which adjoined it on the south, to a Mr. Solomon of Natchez, Mississippi. This gentleman dying suddenly a short time after, the ground (block 59) fell into the hands of the Public Administrator, by whom it was sold at public auction on July 25, 1840. Bryan Mullanphy bought it, and on December 23, 1842, deeded it unconditionally to the Sisters as a Christmas gift.

Notes from Sister Monica’s diary, Jan, 1922