The conclusion of transcribed tidbits of short stories about the history of "Newfoundland & Labrador" Enjoy! Brief History of Belvedere Convent and Orphanage Belvedere has been occupied as a site since the middle of the eighteenth century when it was called McKie's Grove. A map of 1751 shows a curiously elaborate property on or near the site laid out in four squares bordered by trees. This may have been the ground Peter McKie, surveyor of customs, inherited from his father, John, a member of the garrison, in 1773. In 1811 Peter McKie was given permission to build a house on the property and this may have been sited in the grove as it is said to have been six hundred feet west of the convent. In 1821 Hugh Alexander Emerson, a lawyer born in Windsor, Nova Scotia of United Empire Loyalists, purchased the house and land from McKie. In 1826 Emerson began construction of a new and ambitious house. During the course of the work the old Mckie house, in which Emerson and his family were living, caught fire and partially burned. However it provided accommodation for them until Belvedere was finished. On 15 August 1827 Emerson held a party to celebrate the completion of the new house (Furlong 22-24, Hogan 85-87). The old house became the residence of the farmer who managed the property and was not torn down until the time of Bishop Power (1870-93), likely when the new orphanage was opened in 1885. Emerson was fully engaged in Newfoundland political life running for the first House of Assembly but not getting elected until 1837 at which time he became Solicitor General. He held that post until 1854 and was a member of the Legislative Council 1845-55. The death of his wife in 1844 may have prompted the attempt to sell the property the following year. However, it was not until September of 1847 that Emerson found a buyer in the person of Bishop Michael Anthony Fleming (Bill 290). Fleming had just returned from Ireland with four Franciscan brothers who were to teach in the Benevolent Irish Society's Orphan Asylum School. Belvedere was to serve as residence for the monks as well as the Bishop. Fleming died there on 14 July 1850 (Furlong 22-24, Hogan 85-87). The monks did not find the accommodation suitable being too far from the Chapel (then on Henry Street) and the school on Military Road so they later moved into the apartment above the school and, by 1853, had all returned to Ireland (FitzGerald 429-30). It then served as a residence for the seminarians at st. Bonaventure's College while their building was under construction (Higgins 254). In 1859 Belvedere took on new life as an orphanage for girls under the direction of the Sisters of Mercy as St. Michael's Convent. The convent had, by the 1880s, become too small for the growing number of orphans and a new building was opened in 1885. This structure served as an orphanage until the late 1960s when it became, first, a school and then the offices of the Roman Catholic School Board for St. John's. St. Michael's Convent, Belvedere was constructed by Alexander Norris (Furlong 22), a Scots builder and carpenter who would later work on Government House and Retreat Cottage, in 1826-27. The house was unusually large in that it contained two drawing rooms and two kitchens as well as a dining room, study and breakfast room on the main floor with ten bedrooms on the second (Times 6 Aug 1845). A seven bay, two and a half storey timber-framed structure under a hipped roof it may have been intended to be a semi-detached house and that it was a speculative venture which did not succeed. According to Carla Emerson Furlong the house was modelled on houses of western Nova Scotia from which the Emerson family came. A photograph of 1900 shows the house with a number of Gothic Revival features: label mouldings about the windows and an elaborate Gothic porch. These would have been unusual features in a house of the 1820s and so are likely to have been modifications made by Bishop Fleming when he took over the house in 1847. Fleming had an interest in architecture as did his successor, John Thomas Mullock. The one feature that may have survived from the original house were the dormer windows with arched heads. Many of these features were removed when the buildings was covered in siding sometime in the 1970s but elements of the porch remain. This writer has not been able to e! xamine the interior to determine how much of that is original. The Orphanage is a three story brick structure over a high basement and topped by a mansard roof constructed in 1884-85. It is a well-modelled example of the style with a central pavilion, quoining and elaborate window hoods. Michael Francis (later Bishop) Howley claims to have designed and supervised the erection of this building (Evening Telegram 19 Oct 1887). Additions to its rear were made 1921-24. Conclusion These two buildings are important both architecturally and historically. The convent (Belvedere) is, after the Anderson House on Signal Hill Road and the Commissariat, the oldest building in the city. Though somewhat altered because of the modern siding, it still retains many of its original features. Its association with H.A. Emerson links it with a political family involved with Newfoundland government from 1832 to 1949. The fact that it was the deathplace of Bishop Fleming links it with the builder of the Roman Catholic Cathedral and the figure who shaped Newfoundland politics when it was in its infancy. The Orphanage is, with the Benevolent Irish Society's St. Patrick's Hall, the only surviving Second Empire style masonry institutional building in Newfoundland. While this is by no means certain, it is likely to be one of the few, if not the only remaining building designed by Howley who saw himself as something a Renaissance man writing poetry, operettas, scholarly articles and histories. Both buildings are part of an area of very considerable architectural and historic importance - the religious precinct. It is likely that this area is, after the area comprising the seminary and the cathedral in Quebec, the most compact and closely linked collection of religious buildings in North America. This precinct is worthy of consideration by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada as a National Historic District.