Indiana is an old village site—a ghost town

Ghost town

A ghost town is an abandoned town or city. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economic activity that supported it has failed, or due to natural or human-caused disasters such as floods, government actions, uncontrolled lawlessness, war, or nuclear disasters...

 -- now within the precincts of the Ruthven Park National Historic Site, 1 km north of Cayuga

Cayuga, Ontario

Cayuga is an unincorporated community and county seat in the province of Ontario, Canada located at the intersection of Highway 3 and Munsee Street and along the Grand River in Haldimand County. Cayuga is about a 20 minute drive from Lake Erie and 30 minutes south of Hamilton and 115 minutes south...

, in Haldimand County, Ontario

Haldimand County, Ontario

Haldimand is a rural city-status single-tier municipality on the Niagara Peninsula in Southern Ontario, Canada, on the north shore of Lake Erie, and on the Grand River. Municipal offices are located in Cayuga....

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. The site was also referred to as "Deans" as late as 1940-1951, when it was marked on a map published by C. Tarling & Co . The Indiana site lies on the north-east bank of the Grand River

Grand River (Ontario)

The Grand River is a large river in southwestern Ontario, Canada. From its source, it flows south through Grand Valley, Fergus, Elora, Waterloo, Kitchener, Cambridge, Paris, Brantford, Caledonia, and Cayuga before emptying into the north shore of Lake Erie south of Dunnville at Port Maitland...

, south of Regional Road 54.

Settlement history

noted that Thomas Lester "settled there in 1837" and that "he carried on an extensive and successful lumbering business." However, the website of the attributes the development of Indiana to the builder of Ruthven Park, David I. Thompson (and his descendants, including the politician David Thompson), who "obtained land along the Grand River where he built a dam and lock, grist mill and saw mill around which the village of Indiana grew. By 1870, Indiana was humming with several industries and approximately 300 residents." Both sources associate the development of Indiana with the Grand River Navigation Company, which "was forced out of the trade by railway competition" . Nelles noted in 1905: "Only the site of Indiana or Dean's now remains. ... Only the older residents of Haldimand remember anything about Indiana."