Vincennes is a city in, and the county seat of, Knox County, Indiana, United States. It is located on the lower Wabash River in the southwestern part of the state, nearly halfway between Evansville and Terre Haute. It was founded in 1732 by French fur traders, including the namesake François-Marie Bissot, Sieur de Vincennes. It is the oldest continually inhabited European settlement in Indiana and was its longest serving territorial capital. It is one of the oldest settlements west of the Appalachians. The population was 16,759 at the 2020 census.
The Illinois campaign, also known as Clark's Northwestern campaign, was a series of engagements during the American Revolutionary War in which a small force of Virginia militia led by George Rogers Clark seized control of several British posts in the Illinois Country of the Province of Quebec, located in modern-day Illinois and Indiana in the Midwestern United States. The campaign is the best-known action of the western theater of the war and the source of Clark's reputation as an early American military hero.
George Rogers Clark was an American military officer and surveyor from Virginia who became the highest-ranking Patriot military officer on the northwestern frontier during the Revolutionary War. He served as leader of the Virginia militia in Kentucky throughout much of the war. He is best known for his captures of Kaskaskia in 1778 and Vincennes in 1779 during the Illinois campaign, which greatly weakened British influence in the Northwest Territory and earned Clark the nickname of "Conqueror of the Old Northwest". The British ceded the entire Northwest Territory to the United States in the 1783 Treaty of Paris.
Lincoln Memorial Bridge is a reinforced concrete, open-spandrel deck arch bridge built carrying U.S. Route 50 Business over the Wabash River between Vincennes, Indiana and Lawrence County, Illinois. It is said to mark the point where Abraham Lincoln crossed the Wabash River on his way to Illinois in 1830, and a sculptural installation, the Lincoln Trail State Memorial, marks the western end of the bridge.
Henry Hamilton was an Anglo-Irish military officer and later government official of the British Empire. He served in North America as Lieutenant Governor of the Province of Quebec and later as Deputy Governor after the American Revolutionary War. He later served as Governor of Bermuda and lastly, as Governor of Dominica, where he died in office.
Leonard Helm was an American frontiersman and military officer who served during the American Revolutionary War. Born around 1720 probably in Fauquier County, Virginia, he died in poverty while fighting Native American allies of British troops during one of the last engagements of the Revolutionary War around June 4, 1782, in Jefferson County, Virginia.
Fort Ouiatenon, built in 1717, was the first fortified European settlement in what is now Indiana, United States. It was a palisade stockade with log blockhouse used as a French trading post on the Wabash River located approximately three miles southwest of modern-day West Lafayette. The name 'Ouiatenon' is a French rendering of the name in the Wea language, waayaahtanonki, meaning 'place of the whirlpool'. It was one of three French forts built during the 18th century in what was then New France, later the Northwest Territory and today the state of Indiana, the other two being Fort Miami and Fort Vincennes. A substantial French settlement grew up around the fort in the mid-18th century. It was ceded to the British and abandoned after the French and Indian War. Later, it passed into Indian hands and was destroyed in 1791 by American militia during the Northwest Indian War. It was never a U.S. fort. The original site was rediscovered in the 1960s; the archaeological site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2021.
Francis Vigo, born Giuseppe Maria Francesco Vigo, was an Italian-American who aided the American colonial forces during the Revolutionary War and helped found a public university in Vincennes, Indiana.
During the 18th and early 19th centuries, the French, British and U.S. forces built and occupied a number of forts at Vincennes, Indiana. These outposts commanded a strategic position on the Wabash River. The names of the installations were changed by the various ruling parties, and the forts were considered strategic in the French and Indian War, the American Revolutionary War, the Northwest Indian War and the War of 1812. The last fort was abandoned in 1816.
François Riday Busseron was a Canadien fur trader, general store operator, and militia captain in the American village of Vincennes. He supported the Americans during the American Revolution and funded the first American flag made in Indiana. As a U.S. citizen, he would serve as a judge in the court of general quarter sessions.
Pierre Gibault was a Jesuit missionary and priest in the Northwest Territory in the 18th century, and an American Patriot during the American Revolution.
The George Rogers Clark Flag is a red and green striped banner in the model of American Flags commonly associated with George Rogers Clark, although Colonel Clark did not campaign under these colors. The "Clark" flag was made in Vincennes, Indiana, and likely flew over Fort Sackville even before Clark arrived.
Joseph Lawrence Bowman was an American frontiersmen and military officer who fought during the American Revolutionary War. He was second-in-command during Colonel George Rogers Clark's 1778 military campaign to capture the Illinois Country, in which Clark and his men seized the key British-controlled towns of Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Vincennes. Following the campaign, Bowman was critically injured in an accidental gunpowder explosion and subsequently died of his wounds. He was the only American officer killed during the 1778-1779 Illinois campaign. Joseph Bowman kept a daily journal of his trek from Kaskaskia to Vincennes, which is one of the best primary source accounts of Clark's victorious campaign.
Young Tobacco was the English name given to a Piankeshaw chief who lived near Post Vincennes during the American Revolution. His influence seems to have extended beyond his own village to all those along the Wabash River.
Spirit of Vincennes, Inc is a non-profit organization dedicated to historic preservation and education in Vincennes and Knox County, Indiana, US. The group awards scholarships to graduates from each of the Knox County high schools, and presents a "Long Knife" award to individuals who help promote the history of Knox County.
The Vincennes Trace was a major trackway running through what are now the American states of Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois. Originally formed by millions of migrating bison, the Trace crossed the Ohio River near the Falls of the Ohio and continued northwest to the Wabash River, near present-day Vincennes, before it crossed to what became known as Illinois. This buffalo migration route, often 12 to 20 feet wide in places, was well known and used by American Indians. Later European traders and American settlers learned of it, and many used it as an early land route to travel west into Indiana and Illinois. It is considered the most important of the traces to the Illinois country.
The Treaty of Grouseland was an agreement negotiated by Governor William Henry Harrison of the Indiana Territory on behalf of the government of the United States of America with Native American leaders, including Little Turtle and Buckongahelas, for lands in Southern Indiana, northeast Indiana, and northwestern Ohio. The treaty was negotiated and signed on Aug 21, 1805, at Harrison's home in Vincennes, Indiana, called Grouseland. Negotiated a year after the second Treaty of Vincennes, it was the second major land purchase in Indiana since the close of the Northwest Indian War and the signing of the 1795 Treaty of Greenville.
Frederick Coffay Yohn, often recognized only by his initials, F. C. Yohn, was an American artist and magazine illustrator.
The St. Francis Xavier Cathedral is a historic Catholic church in Vincennes, Indiana, under the Diocese of Evansville. Named for Francis Xavier, the 16th-century Jesuit missionary, it is located opposite George Rogers Clark National Historical Park at 205 Church Street, within the Vincennes Historic District.
The Siege of Fort Vincennes, also known as the Siege of Fort Sackville and the Battle of Vincennes, was a Revolutionary War frontier battle fought in present-day Vincennes, Indiana won by a militia led by American commander George Rogers Clark over a British garrison led by Lieutenant Governor Henry Hamilton. Roughly half of Clark's militia were Canadien volunteers sympathetic to the American cause. After a daring wintertime march, the small American force was able to force the British to surrender the fort and in a larger frame the Illinois territory.
