Old Cathedral 'French and Indian' Cemetery
Vincennes, Knox County, Indiana
Marker Inscription
The Old Cathedral "French and Indian" Cemetery, 1750-1846. Contains the graves (mostly unmarked) of some 4,000 inhabitants of early Vincennes, including soldiers and patriots of the American Revolution who helped Colonel George Rogers Clark to capture nearby Fort Sackville in 1779. The cemetery marks the site of the log church where the people of Vincennes swore an oath of allegiance to the Republic of Virginia and the United States on July 20, 1778. During the siege of Fort Sackville (February 23-24, 1779), Clark's men took up positions at the church and cemetery. It was at the church that Colonel Clark and the British commander, Lieutenant Governor Henry Hamilton, negotiated terms of surrender on February 24. The surrender of Fort Sackville occurred the next day., February 25, 1779. As a result, Hamilton's plan to crush the Revolution in the West was checked and a basis was laid for the United States to later claim the area northwest of the Ohio River, from which were eventually formed the states of Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and part of Minnesota. The Old Cathedral and Cemetery are located in the Vincennes Historic District, which was placed on the National Register of Historical Places on December 31, 1974
Erected by Sons of the American Revolution
The Story
This cemetery holds the mostly unmarked graves of some 4,000 early residents of Vincennes, among them Revolutionary soldiers who aided George Rogers Clark. On its ground stood the log church where townspeople swore allegiance to Virginia and the United States in 1778, and where in February 1779 Clark and British commander Henry Hamilton negotiated the surrender of nearby Fort Sackville.
Why it matters
Clark's capture of Fort Sackville checked British power in the West and helped the young United States lay claim to the vast Northwest Territory, from which five states were later carved.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Vincennes in the eighteenth century was a French colonial outpost on the Wabash River, one of the oldest European settlements in the vast interior that would become the American Midwest. Its people were French and Native, Catholic in faith, living far from any seat of power in a country of rivers and forests. The cemetery beside the old church holds the graves — most of them unmarked — of some four thousand of these early inhabitants, spanning the years from 1750 to 1846.
By the time of the American Revolution, this remote settlement had become strategically vital. The struggle between Britain and the rebelling colonies was not confined to the Atlantic seaboard; it reached deep into the frontier west of the Appalachians, where control of key posts could decide who claimed the whole interior. Vincennes and its Fort Sackville sat squarely in that contest.
The log church that once stood on this ground was the heart of the community — and in 1778 it became something more. On July 20 of that year, the people of Vincennes gathered here and swore an oath of allegiance to the Republic of Virginia and to the United States, a striking act of loyalty from a frontier town far from the centers of the Revolution.
People & events
The central drama belongs to Colonel George Rogers Clark, whose campaign in the West aimed to break British power over the frontier. Fort Sackville, held by the British, was his target. The graves here include soldiers and patriots of the Revolution who helped Clark take that fort in 1779 — the community's own sons woven into the larger fight.
During the siege of Fort Sackville, on February 23 and 24, 1779, Clark's men took up their positions at this very church and cemetery. The ground you would stand on was a firing position and a staging point in a Revolutionary War siege far from the famous eastern battlefields. And it was at the church that Clark met the British commander, Lieutenant Governor Henry Hamilton, to negotiate terms on February 24.
The surrender of Fort Sackville followed the next day, February 25, 1779. With it, Hamilton's plan to crush the Revolution in the West was checked. The marker was placed by the Sons of the American Revolution, an organization dedicated to honoring the soldiers and patriots of that founding struggle — here, fittingly, above the resting place of some who served.
Its place in the American story
The fall of Fort Sackville was one of those frontier turning points whose consequences vastly outran the size of the battle. By checking British ambitions in the West, Clark's victory helped lay the basis for the United States to claim the enormous territory northwest of the Ohio River when the war was won.
From that Northwest Territory, in time, five states were carved — Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin — along with part of Minnesota. A negotiation conducted at a frontier log church thus stands near the headwaters of a story that shaped the map of the entire American Midwest.
That such a pivotal chapter unfolded around a modest church and its burying ground is a reminder that the Revolution was won not only at Yorktown and Saratoga but at remote posts on distant rivers. The Old Cathedral complex and this cemetery lie within the Vincennes Historic District, recognized on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974 — a formal acknowledgment of ground where national history was made.
If you visit
Approach this place with a quiet respect, because it is first of all a burial ground — the resting place of roughly four thousand early residents of Vincennes, most in graves that were never marked. What looks like open, peaceful ground is in fact one of the region's oldest cemeteries.
Then let the layers of history come forward. This is where townspeople swore their allegiance in 1778, where Clark's soldiers took their positions during the 1779 siege, and where the terms that decided Fort Sackville's fate were negotiated. Stand near the church and imagine those tense February days, the fort not far off, the outcome uncertain.
The site sits within the Vincennes Historic District, so it pairs naturally with the town's other early landmarks for a day of walking through frontier and Revolutionary history. Read the marker slowly and let it connect the small — a log church, an unmarked grave — to the very large: the founding of five future states. Few modest patches of ground carry so much of the American story.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · George Rogers Clark
- · Henry Hamilton
Related events
- · Siege of Fort Sackville, 1779
- · Oath of allegiance at Vincennes, 1778
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Hopkins County / Samuel Hopkins
Madisonville, KY
Hopkins County, created in 1806, honors Samuel Hopkins, a Virginia officer who served on Washington's staff through the Revolution before coming west in 1797 as an agent of the Transylvania Company. He organized and led the first court in the sprawling original Henderson County, sat in both houses of Kentucky's legislature, and commanded American forces on the Western frontier during the War of 1812. He capped his career with two terms in Congress.
Muhlenberg County / Gen. Peter Muhlenberg
Greenville, KY
Muhlenberg County, formed in 1798, takes its name from Peter Muhlenberg, the Pennsylvania clergyman who famously declared there was "a time to preach and a time to fight"—and shed his pastor's robes to raise the 8th Virginia Regiment. He served from 1776 through the victory at Yorktown, then entered Congress and the Senate. Many veterans of his regiment became pioneers in this corner of Kentucky.
Morgantown & Daniel Morgan
Morgantown, KY
Founded as Funkhouser Hill, this Butler County seat was renamed Morgan Town in December 1810 to honor Daniel Morgan, one of the American Revolution's most gifted battlefield tacticians. The settlement grew from a nucleus of Revolutionary War veterans granted land for their service, mingling with pioneers streaming westward across early Kentucky. Morgan himself, born around 1735, rose from a French and Indian War teamster to the general whose double-envelopment of Banastre Tarleton at Cowpens in 1781 earned him a gold medal from Congress.
Rogers Station, 1780
Nelson County, KY
In the dangerous years of the Revolution, frontier surveyor and soldier James Rogers marked out a thousand-acre claim here in 1775 and by 1780 had planted a fortified station on it. A veteran of Dunmore's War and the Revolution, Rogers was commissioned a militia colonel and justice of the peace by Virginia's governor Patrick Henry, and he signed the early petitions asking that Kentucky be separated from Virginia. Stations like his were the seeds of permanent settlement.