Phelan-Verot House Marker, Fernandina Beach, FL

Phelan-Verot House Marker, Fernandina Beach, FL This historical marker at the Phelan-Verot House in Fernandina Beach tells the story of the Sisters of St. Joseph, the nuns who lived in the house while their convent was being built in the 1870s and early 1880s. The marker text reads as follows: On February 5, 1875, Jean-Pierre Augustin Verot, Bishop of Saint Augustine, purchased this cottage from Sarah Phelan. The Sisters of Saint Joseph lived here in the year 1877, when a devastating epidemic of yellow fever swept over the Amelia Island community. From this place, for three weeks as the epidemic raged, the small coterie of sisters risked their lives, night and day, as they nursed the stricken of every race, Catholic, non-Catholic, rich and poor. They offered comfort and prayers for the sick and dying, and even helped bury the dead. Grateful citizens thereafter called them Angels of Mercy. Mother Celenie and Sister de Sales, young French nuns far from their motherhouse in LePuy, France, died of the fever. They rest in Bosque Bello Cemetery, their graves marked with simple stone crosses bearing the date 1877. Sponsored or placed by: Amelia Island Fernandina Restoration Foundation and the Florida Department of State.https://digitalcommons.unf.edu/historical_architecture_main/4579/thumbnail.jp