According to family tradition, the Val Violette house has stood on its present site in Van Buren since 1850 when it was built on River Lot 301. It is believed that the house contains parts of an older residence that was moved from a location closer to the St. John River. The house has been passed from father to son over four generations. The male lineage of the Violette family originates in Angoumois, France, and traces family movement to Saintes, France; Louisbourg, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia; then to the St. John Valley. It is currently the residence of Val and Anne Violette.

Belonie Violette (1817ñ1879), builder of the Val Violette House, was a third-generation owner of what in the American era became Lot 301 in Township M, Range 2. In 1831, when both Maine and New Brunswick claimed the territory, Maine agents John G. Deane and Edward Kavanagh were sent north to determine the demographics of the disputed area. When they interviewed Belonie Violetteîs father, FranÁois Violette (1770ñ1856), he told them that his father, FranÁois Violette, Sr. (1744ñ1824), built a gristmill on the site "forty years ago." He also told them that he had taken up residence there "three years ago." He explained that his family owned a larger estate, some 90 rods in width, at the mouth of Grande-RiviÉre, in what is now Saint-Léonard, New Brunswick. And he noted his familyîs receipt of a British grant to that site in 1826.

Shortly after acquiring title from his father, Belonie Violette sold the propertyîs gristmill privilege to Vital Thibodeau of Saint-Basile who would further develop it. In 1846 he deeded the first of two sawmill sites. Realizing the potential of Violette Stream, which flowed from Violette Pond, Belonie Violette sold the site of a second sawmill in 1855 to George W. Smith and Charles Crosby of Bangor, Maine. Later, Smith and Crosby drove cedar logs downstream to the mill site and manufactured shingles, the first to be sent out of the Upper St. John Valley area to American markets. In 1860, Smith and Crosby sold their mill to W. C. Hammond, whose family had been associated with the lumber industry in New Brunswick.

Apparently Belonie Violette preferred not to become involved in lumber milling, which was considered a risky business. Instead, he farmed Lot 301 and sold land. In addition, he maintained an interest in civic affairs. He was elected to the Board of Assessors of Van Buren Plantation in 1844, served as one of three Aroostook County Commissioners in 1856, and in 1866 he was elected to a term in the Maine State legislature.

Belonie Violetteîs family grew to fourteen children, seven boys and seven girls. Instead of diminishing the value of the homesite by parceling it among his children in equal shares, Violette bought farms in newly developed sectors of the plantation, and turned them over to his sons when they attained maturity. Thus the eldest son, Frederic, would have a farm in Cyr Plantation and the next son, Dennis, raised his family in nearby Hamlin.

In 1875, Violette consigned the family estate to his spouse on the understanding that whenever she decided to become a pensioner of an inheriting son, that son would provide for his younger siblings in the manner that the elder sons had been provided for. Therefore, when the middle son, Ambroise (1850ñ1911), agreed to take his mother as pensioner after Belonieîs death four years later, he also agreed to provide dowries for his unmarried younger sisters and to provide his younger brothers with farms of their own. Until they attained maturity, the younger brothers were bound to work for their supporting brother and mother on the original homestead.