Aerial survey · USDA NAIP · public domainGreenlawn, a Vincennes City Cemetery section dating to 1788, called Indiana’s oldest public cemetery by the City, with 10,000+ burials.
901 Hart St, Vincennes, IN 47591
Research updated September 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free to visit
Access
Limited Access
Historic cemetery with uneven ground, aged stone pathways, and unmarked burial areas
Equipment
Photos OK
City-described oldest public cemetery in Indiana · Revolutionary War-era burials including Francis Vigo · Indiana Territorial capital history · Thousands of undocumented burials
Greenlawn is one of three sections of Vincennes City Cemetery; the City dates it to 1788 and calls it Indiana’s oldest public cemetery. The cemetery sits in Vincennes, a city that served as the territorial capital of the Indiana Territory beginning in 1800, and its graves reflect that deep historical strata — Revolutionary War-era soldiers, early French settlers, and figures from the frontier period of American westward expansion lie here.
Among the notable interments is Francis Vigo (1747–1836), an Italian-born merchant and patriot who financed George Rogers Clark's 1779 campaign to capture Fort Sackville from the British during the Revolutionary War. Vigo's contributions were historically significant, yet he died impoverished after the U.S. government took decades to repay him; he is buried at Greenlawn, and his story represents the mix of triumph and obscurity that defines the cemetery's population.
The grounds contain thousands of undocumented burials — graves that predate systematic record-keeping or whose markers have been lost to time and weathering. Among the surviving headstones, one in particular draws attention: a badly discolored stone reputed locally to mark the burial site of someone killed by a lightning strike. Whether the discoloration has a natural or chemical explanation remains unresolved.
Sources
The selected Indiana State Museum Downtown Ghost Story Walk listing starts at Old State Bank and does not identify Greenlawn as a stop.
Within the cemetery, the badly discolored headstone associated locally with a lightning-strike death draws the most attention. Visitors have reported an unsettled feeling near the oldest sections, where undocumented burials mean the dead below remain largely anonymous. The sheer density of interments — more than 10,000 confirmed, with more unknown — contributes to accounts of the grounds feeling different from ordinary cemeteries of later eras.
Francis Vigo, who died penniless after the government failed to honor its debt to him, is sometimes cited in local tradition as a lingering presence — the kind of unfinished business that ghost lore tends to attach to those who died with outstanding grievances. No specific apparition accounts are attached to Vigo's grave in documented sources, but the narrative structure of his life makes him a recurring figure in Vincennes ghost walk programming.
Notable Entities
Walk among the oldest graves in Indiana, including Revolutionary War-era headstones and the discolored stone said to mark a lightning-strike death. Over 10,000 burials, thousands undocumented.
The Indiana State Museum Downtown Ghost Story Walk is a separate downtown Vincennes event starting at Old State Bank, 114 North 2nd Street; its selected listing does not identify Greenlawn as a stop. It is not established as a Greenlawn visitor product.
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Atlanta, GA
Historic Oakland Cemetery was chartered in 1850 as the six-acre 'Atlanta Cemetery,' renamed Oakland in 1872, and expanded to 48 acres. Approximately 70,000 people are interred, including roughly 6,900 Confederate soldiers (3,000 unidentified), four Confederate generals, six Georgia governors, 27 Atlanta mayors, Margaret Mitchell, golfer Bobby Jones, and Maynard Jackson, Atlanta's first African American mayor. The cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 28, 1976.
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Aerial survey · USDA NAIPGalveston, TX
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