Musée de Venoge

We are an all-volunteer living history museum and our purpose is to understand and interpret the lives and material culture of the early French-Swiss inhabitants. We pay special attention to early trades, domestic arts, early gardening methods and foodways in Switzerland County, Indiana.

Musée de Venoge is one of the few remaining examples of the French colonial architecture that characterized the first settlement of Switzerland County, Indiana. Possibly these early builders met Switzerland County founder and Swiss native, John Hames Dufour, during his 1796 sojourn to the middle Mississippi valley to seek help in establishing his new settlement on the banks of the Ohio. In 1802, Dufour petitioned Congress to enter lands in Indiana on credit with the view of introducing grape culture to the United States. In 1805, another French-speaking Swiss, Louis Gex Oboussier bought 319 acres, a portion of that property is what we now call Musée de Venoge.