Rob Roy is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

in Shawnee Township, Fountain County,

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

History

The town of Rob Roy was named after the Scottish patriot

Robert Roy MacGregor Robert Roy MacGregor ( gd, Raibeart Ruadh MacGriogair; 7 March 1671 – 28 December 1734) was a Scottish outlaw, who later became a folk hero. Early life Rob Roy was born in the Kingdom of Scotland at Glengyle, at the head of Loch Katrine, a ...

by local John I. Foster, a lover of literature who was especially fond of

Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels '' Ivanhoe'', '' Rob Roy ...

's novels. Foster, described as an inventor and a worker of iron, lived in Rob Roy for six or seven years and founded a Methodist church there. The town was platted ''circa'' 1826 and contained 48 lots, with a further addition on the east side by Hiram Jones in 1829. A writer in 1833 described Rob Roy as a small interior village with few inhabitants but increasing in improvement and population; by 1836 it had "five dry goods stores and four groceries, a hotel, three physicians, and was in the center of a very active settlement." The passage of the Chicago and Block Coal Railway through the town also stimulated growth, but competition with nearby Attica (which was on the

Wabash and Erie Canal The Wabash and Erie Canal was a shipping canal that linked the Great Lakes to the Ohio River via an artificial waterway. The canal provided traders with access from the Great Lakes all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. Over 460 miles long, it was th ...

) eventually led to Rob Roy's demise. The post office in Rob Roy was established in 1832, and discontinued in 1906. Rob Roy was heavily damaged by a tornado in April 1953. Today the town consists of a small gathering of homes.

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Fountain County, Indiana Unincorporated communities in Indiana 1820s establishments in the United States Populated places established in the 1820s