BLANCHET, Jean Baptiste (1839-1913), active in Vancouver, Washington State, USA where he was reputedly an architectural assistant and advisor to Mother Joseph of the Sacred Heart (D. Luxton, Building The West: The Early Architects of British Columbia, 2003, 96-97, 493). Born in Cacouna, Quebec in 1839, he moved to the Pacific Northwest in 1866, and listed his trade as “carpenter” in both the 1871 State of Washington Census, and again as a “carpenter” in the 1883 Census. By 1890 he had begun to style himself as an architect, and in 1894 he prepared elaborate plans for the House of Providence Hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia. In 1901 he called tenders for his design of the Providence Orphanage in nearby New Westminster. No other references to his work in Canada have been located. Blanchet died at Vancouver, Washington on 4 February 1913.
VANCOUVER, B.C., Hospital for the Sisters of Charity of the House of Providence [now called St. Paul‘s Roman Catholic Hospital], Burrard Street at Pendrill Street, 1894; major addition, 1903 (Vancouver Daily World, 25 April 1894, 8, descrip.; 5 May 1894, 4, t.c.; C.R., v, 17 May 1894, 1; major addition, 1903, C.R., xiv, 30 Sept. 1903, 3; Fiftieth Anniversary of St. Paul’s Hospital, 1944)
NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C., Providence Ste. Genevieve Roman Catholic Orphanage, 1901 (Daily Columbian [New Westminster], 14 Oct. 1901, 1 & 4, t.c.; D. Luxton, Building The West, 2003, 97, illus.)