French Canadian Louis Pinsounnault, an itinerant stone cutter, was born in Canada in 1855 and emigrated to the U.S. in 1879. The Stone Cutters' Journal of February 1898 reports that Pinsounnault came into the St. Paul union local on a card from Sault Ste. Marie. He and his step-son, also a stone cutter on the Capitol, Camille Steffen, were both active in the Union and by 1910 they had moved on to Los Angeles.