Hindostan Falls is an extinct

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in Center Township, Martin County, in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Indiana Indiana ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north and northeast, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the s ...

Founding and early history

Hindostan was founded at the falls of the East Fork of the White River in 1816. The settlement sat along the original stagecoach route between New Albany and

Vincennes Vincennes (; ) is a commune in the Val-de-Marne department in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. Vincennes is famous for its castle: the Château de Vincennes. It is next to but does not include the ...

and was one of the only roads in the new state of

, which had been a territory until 1816. By 1820, it was the largest community in what was then still Daviess County and the most promising town on the White River. The town was named “Hindostan" by a soldier, Captain Caleb Fellows, an English immigrant who had served with the British East India Company in India before he came to the United States and invested in land along the still raw Indiana frontier. By 1820, about 1,200 people lived in the new town, making it one of the largest settlements in frontier Indiana. Many lived on houseboats on the White River. The surge of population toward new land on the Indiana and Illinois frontiers, as well as Hindostan's location along the stagecoach route, meant that it was constantly open to carriers of disease. Disease eventually destroyed the town. File:Hindostan falls 1.jpg, Pioneer cemetery, Hindostan Falls, Indiana

Sickness and disappearance of the town

An epidemic of yellow fever or

cholera Cholera () is an infection of the small intestine by some Strain (biology), strains of the Bacteria, bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea last ...

broke out in Hindostan in 1820. Water- and insect-borne illnesses were the bane of many towns on the Midwestern frontier. Situated along rivers for the purpose of easy transportation, towns were often built on flood plains that bred insects in huge numbers. The ferocity of the epidemic that struck Hindostan, however, caused the population to succumb to disease or abandon the area. By 1824, less than half the population remained in Hindostan, though many seem to have stayed in the county. An economic depression around 1820 worked alongside the epidemic to drive people away. Some families who had bought land on credit defaulted and fled the area. Hindostan may have lost as many residents to the economic depression as to sickness. Residents who remained were unable to pay their taxes and county and local creditors foreclosed on their property. According to rumor, a county tax collector had several thousand dollars of revenue in his possession when he fell ill during the epidemic. He was thought to have buried the money (gold and silver coins) in an iron pot for safe-keeping until the illness passed. When he died, the money's location was lost forever. Faced with the gradual desertion of the town, the post office, which was established in 1819, was discontinued on December 29, 1830. The site of the prosperous town eventually became farmland. In 1828, the county seat was relocated to Mt. Pleasant, several miles away. This town site was then abandoned by most of its residents in 1853 for a nearby site, now called Loogootee, four miles from Hindostan. The county seat, however, was moved to Trinity Springs, a health spa, then to Shoals in 1871. Shoals today has a population of only 690, which puts it at about half the size of Hindostan before it vanished.

Remains

The site is now the location of an Indiana state fishing and recreation area. A historic marker on State Highway 550 stands a half-mile north of where the town was. No buildings survive, but there are a few surviving pioneer cemeteries nearby, a restored church, and numerous square holes in a large flat rock along the river drilled to support a mill at Hindostan. (The mill was owned by Frederick Shulz, after whom the town of Shoals was named.)

Geography

Hindostan Falls is located at .

Gallery

File:Hindostan Falls, high water.JPG, Hindostan Falls during high water on the East Fork White River File:Falls2.JPG, Hindostan Falls at low (three feet) water File:Hole that once supported a mill near Hindostan Falls, Indiana.JPG, One of the holes that supported a mill below Hindostan Falls

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Martin County, Indiana Unincorporated communities in Indiana Former populated places in Martin County, Indiana Former populated places in Indiana