Vadnais Jean Baptiste

The answer is Jean Baptiste Vadnais.  The following chart shows our connection to him.

My 4^th great-grandparents, Francois and Genevieve, are at the top of the chart.  They had 13 children: 5 boys and 8 girls.  Of the 5 boys only 3 lived to adulthood: Francois my 3^rd great-grandfather, Pierre (Peter) the 8^th child born and the youngest child Jean Baptiste.  I’ve not shown Peter in the chart.  He would be on the same line as Francois and Jean.  Jean and Peter are my 3^rd great-granduncles.  As I stated earlier, Jean is the one whose name is associated with the lake.

Jean initially traveled from Canada to Minnesota at some point between 1842 and 1846 to look for farm land.¹  In early 1846 he returned to Canada to bring his wife and children back to Minnesota.  He was accompanied on the return trip to Minnesota by his brother Pierre (Peter), his brother-in-law Jean Garceau and their families.  He settled on the southeast shore of the lake that would later be named Lake Vadnais.  Supposedly Jean staked a land claim near the lake on June 1, 1846.²  I have not found the claim, but I did find the land grant issued to John Vadner [Jean Vadnais] on August 1, 1853 for the land described as “the south half of the northeast quarter of section 32 in township 30 north of range 22 west in the district of lands subject to sale at Stillwater Minnesota Territory containing eighty acres.”  The earlier 1846 land claim is for the same land.

It was not until October 1855 that my 2^nd great-grandfather Francois joined his uncles, Jean and Peter in Minnesota.⁵ 

On August 15, 1976 a marker was placed on the site where the original Jean Vadnais home once stood.  The marker is in the park located near the southwest corner of Edgerton, Centerville Road and Vadnais Boulevard.

Thanks for visiting, come back soon,
Cynthia

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Footnotes for Which Vadnais is associated with Lake Vadnais? post