Richard Day - Vincennes

Staring out from the past are grizzled veterans of the 14th Indiana Regiment, one of thegreat units of the Civil War. Recruited from Vincennes and surrounding counties in April1861, they saw three years of hard fighting at Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville,Gettysburg, Wilderness, and Spotsylvania. In June 1864, they gathered for a last photographbefore headinghome.

Sugar Loaf Mound resembles an old-fashioned sugar loaf, which was a round-topped coneof hard sugar. Once considered man-made, the mound is a natural formation, used by NativeAmericans for burials around A.D. 900. Pioneer travelers on the Buffalo Trace, now Highway61, got their first prospect (view) of Vincennes from this site. This 1902 view of its west sidealso shows Prospect Hill coal mine (18901902) to the left.

Fort Sackville was built in 1777 by British Lt. Gov. Edward Abbott on the site of the FrenchFort Vincennes (17321764). He named it after Lord Sackville, the kings minister in charge ofsuppressing the American Revolution. The fort had an 11-foot-high stockade, about 200 feetsquare. Later, two blockhouses were added at opposite corners, but not the four shown here.

In July 1778, Col. George Rogers Clark of Virginia captured British forts at Kaskaskia andCahokia on the Mississippi, and at Vincennes, but in December, Lt. Gov. Henry Hamiltonrecaptured Vincennes. Then, after marching 180 miles across Illinois and wading throughthe freezing floodwaters of the Wabash River, Clark and his army of 170 French andAmerican frontiersmen surprised Hamilton and forced him to surrender Fort Sackville onFebruary 25, 1779.

Fort Sackville was abandoned in 1782. Thesite became an area of stores and warehouses,with no indication of its historical significance,until November 18, 1905, when a limestonemarker was placed on First Street, betweenBarnett and Church, by the Daughters ofthe American Revolution. In 1930, it wasremoved to make room for the Clark Memorialand re-erected in 1936 just northeast of theMemorial steps.

In November 1900, Maurice Thompsonpublished his romantic historical novel, Alice of Old Vincennes . It tells the story ofAlice, a spunky French orphan girl whohelps Colonel Clark capture Fort Sackville.The book was a bestseller and inspired ahit Broadway play, starring Virginia Harned(and a young Cecil B. DeMille), whichtoured the nation, playing in VincennesFebruary 26, 1902. The local Alices team isnamed for her as well.

On May 19, 1916, the Pageant of Old Vincennes was performed on the banks of the Wabashin celebration of Indiana statehoods centennial. A replica of Fort Sackville was constructed atColumbia Park (later Kimmell Park) and a cast of 300 local performers sang, danced, and actedout local history, including the surrender of Fort Sackville, shown here.

In 1928, the federal-state George Rogers Clark Sesquicentennial Commission was authorized tobuild a Clark Memorial. On September 1, 1931, demolition and site preparation began. By lateNovember, the site was cleared, except for old St. Francis Xavier school (right of the cathedral),and salvaged bricks were stacked for future construction of public housing. In the distance, rightof center, massive concrete foundation piers can be seen rising from the base.

A circular track was laid around the base for a crane with a 90-foot boom. In January 1932, itbegan lowering granite imported from Stanstead, Vermont, into place. First was the rotunda,then the drums for 16 Doric columns. Each drum was over 6 feet wide and weighed 10 tons. Bythe end of May, the columns were nearly at their full 39-foot height. Each weighed 98 tons.

In June 1932, work began on the dome, which, like the rest of the rotunda interior, was made ofBedford limestone, and later anchored to a concrete dome with heavy copper bolts. In August,the concrete dome was poured and brickwork laid to the top of the Memorial, which was coveredwith courses of granite. Steelworkers riveted into place the steel framework for the skylight. ByOctober, the superstructure was complete.