 Vezin was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Charles Henri Vezin, a merchant of French heritage, and his wife Emilie (née Kalinsky).His great-great-grandfather Pierre de Vezin was married to the seventeenth-century French actress Marie Charlotte de Châteauneuf.Rouget de Lisle, the composer of the French national anthem, "La Marseillaise," was one of his distant cousins.