I don’t know who Mr. Janin was. All I know about him is that he lived in St. Martin Parish in the 1850s, was a practical joker, and was a very patient man.
The evidence is in two newspaper reports.
On Oct. 4, 1895, the New Orleans Daily Picayune reported: “The petrified body of a full-grown man was discovered today in the woods within a few miles of Lafayette, on the banks of Bayou Vermilion. The…