The house was described in Henry M. Brackenridge's book, Recollections of Persons and Places in the West, as "a long, low building with a porch or shed in front and another in the rear; the chimney occupied the center dividing the house into two parts, each with a fireplace. The yard is enclosed with cedar pickets, eight or ten inches in diameter and seven feet high, placed upright, sharpened at the top in the manner of a stockade fort. The front yard was narrow, but the rear was quite spacious and contained the barns and stables, the Negro quarters and all the necessary offices of a farm yard.... The house was a ponderous wooden frame, which, instead of being weather-boarded, was filled in with clay and then whitewashed.

Vital's father was Jean Baptiste, of the family of Gabriel Beauvais and Marie Crosnier of St. Martin, Perche, France. He had had come to Kaskaskia in about 1720 and was married to Louise LaCrois five years later at Fort Chartres. Vital, along with his brother Jean Baptiste, Jr., removed from Kaskaskia to Ste. Genevieve after George Rogers Clark and his Virginia troops captured Kaskaskia from the British during the Revolutionary War.

Felicité, the wife of Vital, was the daughter of Nicholas and Susanne LaSource who were married in Kaskaskia in 1751. She and Vital were married in 1775 and resided in this home which is described as French Colonial "poteaux-en-terre" or vertical cedar logs which were set directly in the ground and was a distinct Creole type structure. Still standing, it is one of three surviving palisadoed homes. It underwent construction 1801, 1894, 1901, 1936 and was renovated in 2000 and is privately owned.

Updated 07 Feb 2009
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