page_title: Vermillion County, Indiana
section_title: Notable people
hierarchical_section_title: Vermillion County, Indiana / Notable people
caption_attribution_description: Claude Matthews
context_page_description: Vermillion County lies in the western part of the U.S. state of Indiana between the Illinois border and the Wabash River. As of the 2010 census, the population was 16,212. The county seat is Newport. It was officially established in 1824 and was the fiftieth Indiana county to be formed.
  Vermillion County is included in the Terre Haute, Indiana, Metropolitan Statistical Area.
  The county contains seven incorporated towns with a total population of about 9,900, as well as several unincorporated communities; it is also divided into five townships which provide local services. An interstate highway, two U.S. routes, and five state roads cross the county, as does a major railroad line.
context_section_description: Henry Dana Washburn was born in Vermont in 1832; in 1850 he moved to Vermillion County, studied law, and opened a practice in Newport in 1853. He served in the Civil War on the Union side as a lieutenant colonel and later as a general; after the war he was elected to the United States House of Representatives and served through 1869. In 1870 he headed an expedition which explored the area that later became Yellowstone National Park. He died 1871 in Clinton and is buried at Riverside Cemetery.
  Claude Matthews was the governor of Indiana from 1893 to 1897. He was born in Kentucky in 1845; he moved to Vermillion County in 1867 and became a prominent farmer. He was elected Indiana Secretary of State in 1890, and governor in 1893. He died in 1898 in Indianapolis and is buried in Clinton; he was 52 years old.
  Ernie Pyle was born on a farm near Dana in 1900. He served for three months in the United States Navy Reserve at the end of World War I; after the war he attended Indiana University but left before graduating to take a newspaper job. He served for several years as the managing editor at the Washington Daily News, and later became the nation's first aviation columnist. He began as a roving correspondent in 1935, and became a war correspondent when the United States entered World War II. His work during the war earned him a Pulitzer Prize. He died in combat in 1945.
  Ken Kercheval was born in Clinton in 1935 and became an actor in 1962; he is best known for his role as "Cliff Barnes" in the television series Dallas.
caption: Claude Matthews
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