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Show V Famous Forts in U. S. History By ELMO SCOTT WATSON (. VJ'H. Western Newspaper Union.) Monument to Two Brave Soldiers Although the name Vincennes brings most readily to mind the heroine of a celebrated historical novel, that little river town in Indiana and the fort which once stood there should be a monument to the memory of two men, Francois Morgan de Vincenne, the Frenchman. and George Rogers Clark, the American, gallant soldiers both. As early as 1650 the French had determined to build a chain of forts through the great inland empire of America to check British expansion, and one of the sites selected for this purpose was on the Wabash river, on the direct line of water communication communica-tion from the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi. But it was not until 1702 that the project was carried through and in that year D Vincenne started from Detroit and established three posts, one where the city of Fort Wayne now stands, another near the present site of Lafayette, later famous as Ouiatanon, and the third on the Wabash, which was variously known as Post Ouabache, Post St. Francis Xavier and Poste Vincents. In 1730 De Vincenne met a glorious death during D'Artaguette's expedition against the Chickasaws, and so he was spared the pain of seeing his fort fall Into British hands at the end of the French and Indian war. The new owners gave to the rude little stockaded stock-aded fort which commanded the town the name of Fort Sackville, in honor of their prime minister, Sir Thomas Sackville, earl of Dorset. In 1778, after George Rogers Clark liad captured Kaskaskia upon the advice ad-vice of Father Gibault, he sent a small force under Capt. Leonard Helm to take the fort at Vincennes and the French there readily turned it over to him. Then Helm renamed it Fort Patrick Henry. He held it until Governor Gov-ernor Hamilton swooped down and recaptured re-captured it, but not until Helm had bluffed the Briton into allowing him and his garrison of one man to march out with the honors of war! So the fort became Fort Sackville again and again was under the British flag. Then followed the heroic march of Clark and his Virginians across the "Drowned Lands" In the winter of 1779. the short siege during which the bullets of Clark's riflemen sped with uncanny precision through the loopholes loop-holes of Fort Sackville to terrify Its defenders, and finally the surrender of the fort. Again this little log fortress became Fort Patrick Henry. The great Northwest was won for the United States and from that time until un-til the fort was torn down, some time after 1S16, its ilagstaff, which had borne t tie lilies of France and the red cross of England knew no other flag but the Stars and Stripes. |