Streetcar #411, the Francis Vigo. Giuseppe Maria Francesco Vigo, known as Francis Vigo, was an Italian-American patriot who aided the American forces during the Revolutionary War, and helped found a public university in Vincennes, Indiana. He was born on December 3, 1747 in Mondov�, in the province of Cuneo (Piedmont), the son of Matteo and Maria Maddelena Vigo. During the summer of 1778, George Rogers Clark (the highest ranking American military officer on the northwestern frontier and older brother of explorer William Clark) defeated the British and captured Kaskaskia (now Illinois) but he needed money to continue fighting. Vigo was very wealthy, Clark was his friend, they shared the same political ideals, in a few months Francis Vigo became the foremost financier of the American Revolution in the Northwest. On December 23, 1778, when Vigo went on a business trip to St. Vincent, now Vincennes, 150 miles from St. Louis, he was arrested by the British troops of Lt-Gov Henry Hamilton who had just recaptured the town for the British Crown. Having served in the Spanish Army, Francis Vigo was a Spanish citizen not an American, but Hamilton was suspicious. He held him on confinement for three weeks, giving him time to study the British army�s weaknesses, the soldiers schedules, to befriend the French-Canadians inhabitants, and to plan a possible attack. Father Pierre Gibault, a Jesuit missionary and priest, conducted Sunday mass then led his entire Vincennes� congregation to Fort Sackville, where he informed Hamilton that all supplies would be denied to the garrison until Vigo was released. Hamilton released Vigo on the condition that he would return to St. Louis. Vigo instead went to Kaskaskia to inform Col. Clark of the British hold on Vincennes, and to help him plan an immediate attack. On February 25, 1779, Clark recaptured the town defeating Hamilton�s garrison of seventy-nine men, a party of re-enforcements, gaining a large store of goods and arms that was arriving from Detroit. (http://fonderiausa.com/francis-vigo/)