Vincennes, Indiana | |
|---|---|
 The George Rogers Clark National Historical Park Rotunda | |
 Flag  Seal | |
 Location of Vincennes in Knox County, Indiana | |
| Coordinates:38°40′39″N87°30′07″W / 38.67750°N 87.50194°W /38.67750; -87.50194 | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Indiana |
| County | Knox |
| Township | Vincennes |
| Established | 1732 |
| Named after | François-Marie Bissot, Sieur de Vincennes |
| Government | |
| • Mayor | Joe Yochum |
| Area | |
• Total | 7.48 sq mi (19.37 km2) |
| • Land | 7.41 sq mi (19.19 km2) |
| • Water | 0.069 sq mi (0.18 km2) 0.94% |
| Elevation | 420 ft (130 m) |
| Population (2020) | |
• Total | 16,775 |
| • Density | 2,261.6/sq mi (873.19/km2) |
| Time zone | UTC-5 (EST) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC-4 (EDT) |
| ZIP Code | 47591 |
| Area codes | 812 and 930 |
| FIPS code | 18-79208[3] |
| GNIS feature ID | 2397143[2] |
| Website | www |
Vincennes is a city in and thecounty seat ofKnox County, Indiana, United States.[4] It is located on the lowerWabash River in thesouthwestern part of the state, nearly halfway betweenEvansville andTerre Haute. It was founded in 1732 by Frenchfur traders, including the namesakeFrançois-Marie Bissot, Sieur de Vincennes. It is the oldest continually inhabited European settlement in Indiana and was its longest servingterritorial capital. It is one of the oldest settlements west of theAppalachians. The population was 16,759 at the2020 census.[5]
The vicinity of Vincennes was inhabited for thousands of years by different cultures ofindigenous peoples.[6] During theLate Woodland period, some of these peoples used localloess hills as burial sites; some of the more prominent examples are the Sugar Loaf Mound and thePyramid Mound.[7]: 668 Inhistoric times, prominent local Indian groups who drove these people out were theShawnee,Wabash, and theMiami tribe.
The first European settlers were French, when Vincennes was founded as part of the French colony ofPays des Illinois,New France. Later on, it would be transferred to the colony ofLouisiana. Several years later, France lost theFrench and Indian War (part of theSeven Years' War), and as a result ceded territory east of theMississippi River, including Vincennes, to thevictorious British.
Once the area was underBritish control, it was associated with theProvince of Quebec until after theRevolutionary War. It then became part of theIllinois County of theColony and Dominion of Virginia. Next it became part ofKnox County in theNorthwest Territory, and it was later included in theIndiana Territory. Vincennes served as capital of the Indiana Territory from 1800 until 1813, when the government was moved toCorydon.[8]
The first trading post on theWabash River was established by Sieur Juchereau, Lieutenant General ofMontréal. With thirty-fourFrench Canadians, he founded the company post on October 28, 1702, to trade forBuffalo hides withAmerican Indians. The exact location of Juchereau's trading post is not known, but because theBuffalo Trace crosses the Wabash at Vincennes, many believe it was here. The post was a success; in the first two years, the traders collected over 13,000 buffalo hides.[9] When Juchereau died,[when?] the post was abandoned.[citation needed] TheFrench Canadian settlers left what they considered hostile territory forMobile (in present-day Alabama), then the capital ofLouisiana, New France.
The oldest European town in Indiana, Vincennes was officially established in 1732 as a secondFrenchfur trading post in this area. TheFrench Indies Company commissioned a French officer,François-Marie Bissot, Sieur de Vincennes, to build a post along the Wabash River to discourage local nations from trading with the English.[10] Vincennes founded the new trading post near the meeting points of theWabash andWhite rivers, and the overlandBuffalo Trace.[11] Vincennes, who had lived with his father among theMiami tribe, persuaded thePiankeshaw to establish a village at his trading post. He also encouragedFrench Canadian settlers to move there, and started his own family to increase the village population.[12] Because the Wabash post was so remote, however, Vincennes had a hard time getting trade supplies from Louisiana for the native nations, who were also being courted by English traders. The boundary between the French colonies ofLouisiana andCanada, although inexact in the first years of the settlement, was decreed in 1745 to run betweenFort Ouiatenon (below the site of modern-dayLafayette, Indiana) and Vincennes.[13]
In 1736, during the French war with theChickasaw nation, Vincennes was captured and burned at the stake near the present-day town ofFulton, Mississippi.[14] His settlement on the Wabash was renamed Poste Vincennes in his honor.
Louisiana governorJean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, next appointedLouis Groston de Saint-Ange de Bellerive to command Poste Vincennes.
As the French colonists pushed north from Louisiana and south fromCanada, however, the American colonists to the east continued to push west. In addition, British traders lured away many of the Indians who had traded with the Canadiens. This competition escalated in theOhio Country until 1754 and the eruption of theFrench and Indian War (the North American theater of theSeven Years' War between Britain and France.)[citation needed]
On February 10, 1763, whenNew France was ceded to theBritish at the conclusion of theFrench and Indian War, Vincennes fell under the authority of Great Britain. British officer John Ramsey came to Vincennes in 1766. He took a census of the settlement, built up the fort, and renamed itFort Sackville. The population grew quickly in the years that followed, resulting in a unique culture of interdependentNative Americans,Canadien settlers and British traders.[citation needed]
Vincennes was far from centers of British power. In 1770 and 1772,Thomas Gage, the commander in chief of Britain's North American forces, received warnings that the residents of Vincennes wereagitating againstthe Crown, and were inciting native tribes along the river trade routes to attack British traders. TheColonial Secretary, theEarl of Hillsborough, ordered the residents to be removed from Vincennes in response. Gage demurred while the residents responded to the charges against them, claiming to be "peaceful settlers, cultivating the land which His Most Christian Majesty [meaning the King of France] granted us." The issue was resolved by Hillsborough's successor,Lord Dartmouth, who insisted to Gage that the residents were not lawless vagabonds, but British subjects whose rights were protected by the Crown. Gage took no action against the residents of Vincennes.[15] In 1778, residents at Poste Vincennes received word of theFrench alliance with the AmericanSecond Continental Congress fromFather Pierre Gibault and Dr. Jean Laffont. They mobilized in support of the American revolutionaries, as did the localPiankeshaw, led by ChiefYoung Tobacco.[citation needed]
Lieutenant ColonelGeorge R. Clark, Captain Leonard Helm, and others created a plan to capture the French forts that the British occupied after Louisiana was ceded. After Kaskaskia was captured by Clark, Lieutenant GovernorHenry Hamilton sent British soldiers and reinforcements from Detroit to Fort Vincennes and helped to rebuild the fort.[citation needed]
TheItalian merchant and PatriotFrancis Vigo found Clark and informed the British presence at the fort. Vigo served with the Patriots, ordered war supplies from the Spanish to help, and acted as a secret agent for the Patriots. Clark rounded up enough men to outnumber the British and planned a surprise attack on Fort Vincennes in the heart of winter, a horrible time when no armies were expected to be able to attack due to illness, lack of food, and the flood waters that were high during this time. The Patriots won the Battle of Vincennes on February 23–24, 1779. Hamilton thought of Vincennes as "a refuge for debtors and Vagabonds from Canada."George Rogers Clark recaptured Fort Sackville in theBattle of Vincennes without losing a single soldier.[16]
Although the Americans remained in control of Vincennes, it took years to establish peace. In 1786, CaptainJohn Hardin led a mountedKentucky militia across theOhio River and destroyed a friendly Piankeshaw town near Vincennes. This led to a series ofattacks and counter-attacks between Wabash Indians and American settlers. Finally, on July 15, 1786, the Wabash landed in forty-seven war canoes at Vincennes to drive the Americans back to Kentucky.[17] The Indians warned the Canadians in advance of their attack and assured them that they would not be harmed, but the Canadians warned the Americans. They quickly supplied Fort Patrick Henry and waited out thesiege. One American was killed and four wounded, and the war party left after destroying the Americans' farms.
In response, Virginia governor Patrick Henry authorized George Rogers Clark to raise the Kentucky militia and mount an expedition against the warring tribes. General Clark gathered a force of 1,000 militia and departedClarksville September 9, 1786, along theBuffalo Trace.[18] The militia spent ten days in Vincennes before marching north along the Wabash, but men deserted by the hundreds. Clark was soon forced to return to Vincennes without any action taken. Clark left 150 men to help defend Vincennes, but this force soon turned into a lawless mob, and the citizens of Vincennes petitioned Congress for help.[19] Secretary of WarHenry Knox sent ColonelJosiah Harmar and theFirst American Regiment to restore order. The Kentucky militia fled Vincennes at the approach ofU.S. Regulars.[20]
Colonel Harmar left 100 regulars under MajorJean François Hamtramck and directed them to build a fort,Fort Knox.[21] Vincennes remained an isolated town, difficult to supply due to its position deep within Indian territory. Secure transport to and from Vincennes meant travelling with a large, armed party, whether over land or via the Wabash River. On September 30, 1790, Major Hamtramck led 350 men from Vincennes as far north as theVermillion River, to engage some of the Indian villages which had been at war with Vincennes. TheKickapoo tracked the party, however, and evacuated every village along the way before the Americans arrived.[22] Hamtramck destroyed some abandoned villages, but he did not engage any war parties. Faced with desertions from Kentucky militia, Hamtramck returned to Vincennes. The expedition had done no serious harm to the enemies of Vincennes, but it distracted some of the Wabash villages while Josiah Harmar, now a General, led a much largerexpedition up through Ohio country towardsKekionga.
The earliest land claims by inhabitants of Vincennes were based on a sale by the Indians to the French in 1742 of a tract of land containing 1.6 million acres, known as the Vincennes Tract. It was a rectangular block lying at right angles to the course of the Wabash River at Vincennes. The tract was ceded by France to Britain by treaty in 1763 after the French and Indian War. On October 18, 1775, an agent for the Wabash Company purchased two tracts of land along the Wabash River from the Piankeshaw tribe called the 'Plankashaw Deed'. In these deeds, the Vincennes Tract was excepted, and it was the first recognition of the tract in period documents. Eventually, the United States Supreme Court invalidated the deeds.
The claims based on French sovereignty or individual deeds issued under it were eventually rejected by congress, because if there were such grants, they passed to the United States by the Treaty of Paris 1783.
By right of conquest, George Rogers Clark secured this land for the United States in 1779 and the Land Act of 1796 honored its boundaries.
The Vincennes Donation Lands were embodied inAn Act for granting lands to the Inhabitants and settlers at Vincennes and the Illinois country, in the territory northwest of the Ohio, and for confirming them in their possessions (1791).
By 1798, the population had reached 2,500.[23]
Elihu Stout published the first newspaper in the Indiana Territory in 1804 at Vincennes. TheIndiana Gazette debuted on July 31, 1804. Fire destroyed the printing presses in 1806, but Stout revived the newspaper as theWestern Sun in 1807.[24][25]
Vincennes served as the first capital ofIndiana Territory until it was moved toCorydon on May 1, 1813.
In 1826, "A party ofShawnee Indians ... in men, women, and children, to 500, passed through this place [Vincennes] ... from their reservation atWapaghkonetta, moving to theMississippi. The celebratedIndian prophet, and a son of the greatTecumseh, were in the company."[26]
Those who were pro-slavery tried to perform an end run around the Indiana constitution by putting in place indentured servitude under which slaves, in theory, appeared to be able to earn their freedom. However, the terms often placed on indentured servants were so excessive, many never actually never were able to achieve freedom.
Slavery was practiced in the 16th century, when the present-day state of Indiana was part ofNew France (1534–1763), by the French and Native Americans. When the area became part of theNorthwest Territory, slavery was banned by theNorthwest Ordinance of 1787, but slavery andindentured servitude continued.[28][29] Slaveholders created a "loophole", that the provision did not apply to African Americans who were already enslaved in the state.[30] In 1816, theConstitution of Indiana made forced labor illegal, stating that "there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in this state."[28]
Polly Strong, an enslaved woman of Vincennes, was the plaintiff in a case that argued that she should be free. After losing in the Harrison County Circuit Court, she won the case at theIndiana Supreme Court on July 22, 1820, and she was freed.[29] In the case of Clark's attorney appealed the decision with the Indiana Supreme Court in the case ofMary Clark v. G.W. Johnston was a former slave who was made anindentured servant and lived in Vincennes. She won her freedom on November 6, 1821, when the Indiana Supreme Court ruled that servitude violated the state's 1816 Constitution.[31] This was a landmark contract law case for indentured servants and foretold the end offorced labor in Indiana.[32]
On November 4, 2007, Knox County joinedDaviess,Martin,Pike, andDubois counties in returning to theEastern Time zone. Controversy concerningtime in Indiana has caused a change in the time zone of Vincennes on three different occasions since theStandard Time Act of 1918.
Vincennes is located on the banks of the Wabash River at the western edge of Knox County. This is also the western edge of the state of Indiana, and Illinois is across the river to the west. The city lies about 100 miles (160 km) southwest ofIndianapolis.U.S. Route 41 passes through the city from north to south, andU.S. Route 50 passes just to the north of the city from east to west.
According to the 2010 census, Vincennes has a total area of 7.478 square miles (19.37 km2), of which 7.41 square miles (19.19 km2) (or 99.09%) is land and 0.068 square miles (0.18 km2) (or 0.91%) is water.[33]
Vincennes has a humid subtropical climate with hot summers and cool winters with heavy rainfall at times throughout much of the year. There are an average of 53.1 days with highs of 90 °F (32 °C) or higher and an average of 101.5 days with lows of 32 °F (0 °C) or lower.[34] Average January temperatures are a high of 36.3 °F (2.4 °C) and a low of 18.3 °F (−7.6 °C). Average July temperatures are a high of 87.7 °F (30.9 °C) and a low of 64.8 °F (18.2 °C). The record high temperature was 104 °F (40 °C) on June 26, 1988. The record low temperature was −26 °F (−32 °C) on January 19, 1994.
Average annual precipitation is 44.43 inches (112.9 cm). Measurable precipitation occurs on an average of 105.6 days each year. The wettest year was 1990 with 60.08 inches (152.6 cm) and the dryest year was 1988 with 36.02 inches (91.5 cm). The most precipitation in one month was 11.18 inches (28.4 cm) in November 1985. The most precipitation in 24 hours was 5.07 inches (12.9 cm).
Average annual snowfall is 5.8 inches (15 cm). Measurable snowfall occurs on only 2.6 days. The snowiest season was 1989–90 when 16.4 inches (42 cm) fell. The most snow in one month was 8.5 inches (22 cm) in December 1990. The most snow in 24 hours was 8.0 inches (20 cm) on March 24, 1990.[35]
| Census | Pop. | Note | %± |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1850 | 2,070 | — | |
| 1860 | 3,960 | 91.3% | |
| 1870 | 5,440 | 37.4% | |
| 1880 | 7,680 | 41.2% | |
| 1890 | 8,853 | 15.3% | |
| 1900 | 10,249 | 15.8% | |
| 1910 | 14,895 | 45.3% | |
| 1920 | 17,160 | 15.2% | |
| 1930 | 17,564 | 2.4% | |
| 1940 | 18,228 | 3.8% | |
| 1950 | 18,831 | 3.3% | |
| 1960 | 18,046 | −4.2% | |
| 1970 | 19,867 | 10.1% | |
| 1980 | 20,857 | 5.0% | |
| 1990 | 19,859 | −4.8% | |
| 2000 | 18,701 | −5.8% | |
| 2010 | 18,423 | −1.5% | |
| 2020 | 16,759 | −9.0% | |
| U.S. Decennial Census[36] | |||
As of thecensus[37] of 2010, there were 18,423 people, 7,407 households, and 4,108 families residing in the city. Thepopulation density was 2,486.2 inhabitants per square mile (959.9/km2). There were 8,259 housing units at an average density of 1,114.6 per square mile (430.3/km2). The racial makeup of the city was 91.9%White, 4.7%African American, 0.3%Native American, 0.7%Asian, 0.7% fromother races, and 1.7% from two or more races.Hispanic orLatino of any race were 1.9% of the population.
There were 7,407 households, of which 26.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 36.8% weremarried couples living together, 14.1% had a female householder with no husband present, 4.5% had a male householder with no wife present, and 44.5% were non-families. 36.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 14.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.19 and the average family size was 2.83.
The median age in the city was 33 years. 19.2% of residents were under the age of 18; 20.8% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 21.4% were from 25 to 44; 23.6% were from 45 to 64; and 15% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 50.3% male and 49.7% female.
As of thecensus[3] of 2000, there were 18,701 people, 7,614 households, and 4,332 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,620.3 inhabitants per square mile (1,011.7/km2). There were 8,574 housing units at an average density of 1,201.4 per square mile (463.9/km2). The racial makeup of the city was 94.34%White, 3.28%African American, 0.25%Native American, 0.72%Asian, 0.06%Pacific Islander, 0.48% fromother races, and 0.88% from two or more races.Hispanic orLatino of any race were 1.02% of the population.
There were 7,614 households, out of which 26.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 40.8% weremarried couples living together, 12.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 43.1% were non-families. 35.8% of all households were made up of individuals, and 14.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.20 and the average family size was 2.85.
In the city, the population was spread out, with 20.0% under the age of 18, 20.5% from 18 to 24, 24.0% from 25 to 44, 20.3% from 45 to 64, and 15.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 33 years. For every 100 females, there were 98.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 97.3 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $26,289, and the median income for a family was $35,424. Males had a median income of $27,029 versus $20,254 for females. Theper capita income for the city was $14,993. About 15.0% of families and 20.7% of the population were below thepoverty line, including 25.9% of those under age 18 and 12.7% of those age 65 or over.
All of the Vincennes city limits is in theVincennes Community School Corporation.[38]
Public schools:
Washington Elementary closed in spring 2010.[39]
South Knox Elementary School andSouth Knox Middle/High School, of theSouth Knox School Corporation, both have Vincennes postal addresses, but are not in the Vincennes city limits.[40][41]
Parochial schools:
Other private schools:
The city government consists of a seven-member city council. Five of whom are elected from districts the other two are elected at large. The mayor is elected in a citywide vote. Joe Yochum is the current mayor, serving in his fourth term. First elected in 2012, he is the longest-serving mayor in the history of Vincennes.[43]
The Revolutionary War battle at Vincennes was featured in the 1901 novelAlice of Old Vincennes byMaurice Thompson.[44] Four ships have also been namedUSS Vincennes in honor of this battle; as well as for the city. The firstVincennes was an 18-gun sloop-of-war commissioned in 1826 and sold in 1867. The secondVincennes was aNew Orleans class heavy cruiser commissioned in 1937 and lost in the Battle of Savo Island in 1942. The thirdVincennes was aCleveland class light cruiser commissioned in 1944 and decommissioned in 1946. The fourth and most recentVincennes was aTiconderoga class guided missile cruiser commissioned in 1985 which was decommissioned and scrapped in 2005.
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Vincennes has threesister cities. Listed alphabetically, they are:[47]
Ovruch, Ukraine
Vincennes, France
Wasserburg am Inn, Germany6078 E St. Rd. 61 Vincennes, IN 47591
6136 East State Road 61Vincennes, Indiana 47591
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