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Fort Knox: Frontier Outpost on the Wabash, 1787-1816 Florence G

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Fort Knox: Frontier Outpost on the Wabash, 1787-1816 Florence G Fort Knox: Frontier Outpost on the Wabash, 1787-1816 Florence G. Watts* The history of Fort Knox, Vincennes, Indiana, coincides in time with the territorial period of that part of the country in which it was situated. First built in 1787, the year Con- gress established the Northwest Territory, Fort Knox re- mained in operation until 1816, the year Indiana became a state. It occupied three locations: the first, from 1787 to 1803, on the northwest edge of the old town; the second, from 1803 to 1813, about three miles above, on the river; the third, from 1813 to 1816, back in Vincennes on the site of the former Fort Sackville. These three separate locations, called for convenience I, 11, and 111, and the obliteration of obvious physical remains led to great confusion in the minds of early local historians. Lacking documentary evidence, they depended upon tradition for their descriptions of Fort Knox. Now a connected story, pieced together from scattered evidence, can be told. The succession of forts at Vincennes begins with one erected about 1731 by Franqois Marie Bissot, Sieur de Vincennes. This initial structure was probably located ad- jacent to the river, immediately south of the present Lincoln Memorial Bridge, where the George Rogers Clark Memorial now stands. Vincennes spoke of it in a letter of March 21, 1733, as “fort de Uabache.” In 1735 Jean Baptiste le Moyne de Bienville, governor of Louisiana, called it the fort of the Peanguichias. Another name, mentioned in 1746, was “les petits ouyas,” named for the Ouiatenon Indians of whom the Piankashaw were considered a part. An English form of this was Little Wiautanon, abbreviated to “L. Wiaut.”l The Bellin map of 1755 located the fort at the junction of the Wabash with the Ohio; and the name given was “Fort St. Ange, *Mrs. Florence G. Watts is a resident of Vincennes, Indiana, and a member and former president of the Indiana Historical Society. 1 Frances Krauskopf, “The French in Indiana, 1700-1760, A Politi- cal History” (Ph.D. dissertation, Dept. of History, Indiana University, Bloomington, 1963), 158; Jacob Piatt Dunn, The Mission to the Oua- boxhe (Indiana Histomcal Society Publieations, Vol. 111, No. 4; Indian- apolis, 1902), 306, 307, 309, 326, 327. 62 Indiana Magazine of Histoyl formerly fort Vincennes or the Fort of the Pianguichias.”2 However, the name “Vincennes,” in its many renditions, is the one that most often appears.8 Following the death of Vincennes in an expedition against the Chickasaw in April, 1736, Louis de Bellerive de St. Ange was appointed to command the post. His task was to keep the Wabash Indians, whom Vincennes had led into the vicinity, nearby and friendly to the French as the habitants depended on the fur trade for their livelihood. During the twenty-eight years of his administration the community be- came more agricultural in character, increasing to about eighty habitants. St. Ange also took steps to strengthen Vincennes’ little fort which had fallen into decay. When the British obtained possession of the French territory by the Treaty of Paris, 1763, St. Ange was sent to Fort de Chartres on the Mississippi. He appointed Major Joseph-Antoine Drouet, Sieur de Richardville, to succeed him as administrator; and on Richardville’s death the British appointed first Nicholas Chappart and then Jean Baptiste Racine dit St. Marie to the office.* Later, on May 19, 1777, as a part of the British re- organization of the Old Northwest under the Quebec Act of 1774, Lieutenant Governor Edward Abbott arrived to take command at Vincennes. He found nothing left in the way of fortification. Assisted by the French he stockaded his cabin, which was probably located on the site of the original fort built by Vincennes, and received four cannons sent by Phillippe Franqois Rastel, Sieur de Rocheblave, commandant at Kaskaskia. He named his fortification Fort Sackville after George Sackville, Lord George Germaine, secretary of 2 Sara Jones Tucker (comp.), Indian Villages of the Illinois Coun- tqt (Illinois State Museum Scientific Papers, Vol. 11, Part 1; Spring- field, 1942), Plate XXIV. 8A list of the various spellings of Vincennes includes Vinsenne, Vincennes or St. Vincennes, Vincene, Vincenne, or Vincesne, all some- times given the final “s” or preceded by “St.” The words “Post,” “au Poste,” or “Fort” often preceded the name; and fre uently “au Post” alone was used. The English corrupted the latter p%rase to “Opost.” The prefix “St.” is accounted for by Bishop J. H. Schlarman who states that the British and Americans seemed to take it for granted that every French post bore the name of a saint. Joseph H. Schlarman, From Quebec to New Orleans (Belleville, Ill., 1909), 606n. 4 Joseph Henry Vanderburgh Somes, Old Vincennes: The History of a Famous Old Town and Its Glo~iousPast (New York, 1962), 33-49, 64, 55; Krauskopf, “French in Indiana,” 345-46. Fort Knox: Frontier Outpost 53 state for the American colonies.s Abbott left Vincennes February 3, 1778, giving as his reason lack of presents for the 1ndians.O The British commander's departure from Vincennes left Fort Sackville unprotected. Emissaries of George Rogers Clark easily occupied the Wabash town in July, 1778, as a part of the American invasion of the Old Northwest during the Revolutionary War. Governor Henry Hamilton, sent to recapture Vincennes for the British, arrived at the fort on December 17, 1778, and immediately began strengthening it. He constructed a powder magazine, guardhouse, barracks, and blockhouse and had a well dug; but he had not completed his improvements by the time Clark made his second suc- cessful attack, February 25,1779.' After capturing Fort Sackville, Clark renamed it Fort Patrick Henry.* No further change of name is recorded although the fort is usually referred to as Fort Sackville, its name at the time of the most important event in its history. On the site now stands the magnificent George Rogers Clark Memorial, built with federal, state, and county funds and dedicated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Sunday, June 14, 1936. Fort Knox soon succeeded Fort Patrick Henry as the defense of Vincennes. Concerning the former fortification historians have been decidedly confused. The difficulty seems to lie with the three locations previously mentioned. Judge John Law, one of the earliest local historians, does not men- tion Fort Knox at all in his history of Vincennes.s The 1886 History of K%ox and Daviess Counties, relying on the testi- mony of several prominent residents, is thoroughly confused 5H. W. Beckwith (ed.), Collsctions of the Illinois State Historical Library (Springfield, Ill., 1903), I, 310-11, 313. Louise Phelps Kellogg, The British Regime in Wisconsin and the Northwest (Madison, Wis., 1935) , 129-31. eBeckwith, Collections, 317; John D. Baeart (ed.), Hen. Hamilton and George Rogers Clcwk in the Ameman Revolutzon, unx the Unpublished Journal of Lieutenant Governor Henry Hmilton (Crawfordsville, Ind., 1951), 14-16. ?Barnhart, Henm Hamilton and George Rogers Clark, 38, 63-64; Kellogg, British Regime, 151. SJames A. James, The Life of George Rogers Clark (Chicago, 1928), 145. SJudge John Law, The Colonid History of Vincennes under the Fwnch, British, and American Governments . (Vincennes, Ind., 1868). 54 Indiana Magazine of History as to dates and The 1880 Lake atlas barely mentions the fort, and the Hardacre atlas of 1903 describes Fort Knox I1 at the site up the river but says that Harrison probably erected this fort during the War of 1812.11 Henry S. Cauthorn, in 1892, is correct in his location of Fort Sack- ville; but, entirely ignorant of Fort Knox I, he insists that there was no fort at Buntin Street and the Wabash River. He mentions blockhouses built after 1800 within the town limits for protection from Indian attacks and locates one “midway between Park Place [presumably the Parke resi- dence which was near the present Park and First streets] and the Harrison Mansion.” In 1901 he reiterates his convic- tion that Fort Sackville was the only fort in Hubbard Madison Smith in his history published in 1902 gives con- siderable attention to the question of forts. He correctly states that the name Fort Knox was given to defenses built in more than one location and concludes that the name was applied to Fort Patrick Henry in town. He further asserts, however, that the location up the river was never fortified but was a garrison occupied by United States troops. He calls this garrison Camp &ox, the name given to a camp in Civil War days in an entirely different spot.ls George E. Green, another local historian, in 1911 cor- rectly applies the name Fort Knox to Fort Sackville but gives no date. He also mentions the other two locations but with no authority other than tradition.” A short anonymous notice in the Indiana Magazine of History of 1914 cites a map drawn by John Mellish in 1818 which shows the fort located up the river. This notice also mentions a letter of Captain George Rogers Clark Floyd on the subject. Original- ly quoted in James B. Finley’s Life Among the Indians, this letter locates Fort Knox “three miles above Vincennes.” The 10 History of Knox and Daviess Counties, Indiana . (Chicago, 1886), 238-40. 11An Illustrated Historical Atlas of Knox County, Indiana (Chica- go, 1880), 38-39; F. C. Hardacre (comp.), Historical Atlas of Knox County, Indiana (Vincennes, Ind., 1903), 38. 12 Henry S. Cauthorn, St. Francis Xavier cathedral, Vincennes, Indiana (n.p., 1892), 39; Henry S. Cauthorn, Histom of the City of Vincennes, Indiana from 1701 to 1901 (Terre Haute, Ind., 1902), 32-39. 18 Hubbard Madison Smith, Histoea1 Sketches of Old Vincennes .
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