James Frost migrated from Uniontown, Pennsylvania, to Thibodaux in 1840 at age 26 and became one of the town's foremost building contractors and property owners. In 1842 he married Almira Ragan, the daughter of New York natives. In partnership with Absalom Kees, and using slave labor, Frost began construction of St. John's Episcopal Church in 1843. Designed by Leonidas Polk, the church was completed in two years. In September 1853, Frost and one of his six children died in a yellow fever epidemic that claimed at least fifteen percent of the town's dwellers.