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BAY ST. LOUIS
69.
obtained the services of the sisters of St. Joseph of Bourg in establishing St. Joseph’s Academy, and also encouraged the Brothers of the Sacred Heart in founding St. Stanislaus College. During his pastorate the common language of the region was French and the church records were kept in French. In 1907 fire destroyed the church. Construction was begun on the present building in 1908; after many difficulties it was completed in 1926.
2.	ST. JOSEPH’S ACADEMY, E. adjoining Our Lady of the Gulf Church, on a spacious campus, is housed in a three-story building of Italian Renaissance design. A Catholic grammar and high school for girls organized in 1855, it is under the supervision of the Sisters of St. Joseph. In 1854 three members of the mother house of this order sailed from Havre, France, to Bay St. Louis, the voyage requiring 40 days. Their first years in the new country were full of hardships. During the War between the States the beach was bombarded by Federal warships and the sisters fled to the woods. A Confederate soldier was killed on the convent grounds. In 1907 the original school building was burned, but was immediately replaced.
3.	SHRINE OF OUR LADY OF THE WOODS, at the rear of the academy, suggests a rustic wayside shrine of Central Europe. A baldachino protects a plaster of paris statue of the Virgin Mary. This pastel colored figure, screened by foliage of trees and shrubs, has withstood the elements for many years. On a voyage from France the ship on which Father Buteux was a passenger was Wrecked. In honor of the Blessed Virgin to whom he attributed his salvation from drowning, the priest had this shrine erected in 1847 in what was then a forest.
4.	ST. STANISLAUS COLLEGE, facing the Gulf and of the church, is a preparatory school for boys under
j «e supervision of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart. Its : 5ve recj brick buildings of Romanesque design are on a *ell-kept campus shaded by oak and camphor trees. The | Antral building, with ironwork balconies and belfry sur-| Counted by a cross, is joined by arched passages to two-[ wings. In front of the main entrance is a heroic I |^atue of the Christ. At the rear of the building are ten-I and handball courts and several small structures.