After doing some digging on St. Michael's Convent, we found there is a lot more mystery surrounding the property than we realized. The convent is located on a property called 'Belvedere' which can be traced back to the turn of the 19th-century when the land was owned by Peter McKie. For decades, it was believed that a Nova Scotia born lawyer, Hugh Alexander Emerson, purchased the property in 1821 from McKie, then went on to build the dwelling house in 1826 - 1827. Oral history even describes events that took place in the 1820s while under the ownership of Emerson, but interestingly, the earliest record for his purchase was twenty years later in 1841.
Our newest fieldnote dives into these divergent timelines and tries to suss out the truth.
Read all about it here: https://heritagenl.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/047-St.-Michaels-Convent-Belvedere.pdf
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