Ramsey County History – Fall 1964: “Little Canada—Heritage from the French”

Little Canada—Heritage from the French
Author: Margaret Whitney Wall

Most of St. Paul’s first settlers were French Canadians. Two of them, Benjamin and Genevieve Gervais, sold their downtown St. Paul land and claims in 1844 and moved north, near the lake that became Lake Gervais. Other French Canadians soon followed, and Little Canada was born. Early settlers bore the surnames Ducharme, Lambert, Vadnais, Garceau, LaBarre (changed later to LaBore), Nadeau, Belland, Bibeau, Auge, Morrisette, etc. By 1851, there were forty French-surnamed families living there. Later that year, settlers donated land for what became St. John the Evangelist Church, a log cabin, replaced by a brick church in 1881 and a new building in 1956, both on the original site. Services were conducted in French into the 1920s. A German immigrant, William Kohlmann, came to Little Canada in 1870 and opened a lake resort that flourished for many years. The most famous Little Canada event was the Lake Gervais cyclone of 1890. “Little Canada today has much the same appeal for its residents as it had for its original settlers.”
PDF of Wall article