One and a half centuries ago, on October 15, 1876, Jean Price-Mars was born in Grande-Rivière-du-Nord. A doctor, diplomat, parliamentarian, minister and ethnologist, he lived for nearly a century before passing away in Pétion-Ville on March 1, 1969. The profile dedicated to him on the "Île en île" website, authored by Gérarde Magloire, describes him as "the principal Haitian thinker of the 20th century." In an interview granted in 1965 to journalist Jean Dominique from Radio Haïti, he reflected on several stages of his life.

His family counts among the notables of the North. His father, Me Jean Éléamont Mars, served as a justice of the peace and former deputy of the municipality. His grandfather, Baron Pierre de Mars, an aristocrat under Faustin Soulouque's Empire, exported coffee and mahogany wood. Further back in the paternal lineage is Jean-Baptiste Belley, known as Mars, the first black deputy from France, who represented Saint-Domingue in the national Convention and later in the Council of Five Hundred.