Indiana is a ghost town in Haldimand County, Ontario, Canada. It was located on the north-east bank of the Grand River, north of Cayuga. The town flourished in the mid- to late 19th century as a mill town and base for the river transport trade. Until the 1860s it was the largest industrial town in Haldimand County, but by 1905 it was largely abandoned. Part of the townsite is now included in the Ruthven Park National Historic Site of Canada.
It is also connected to a smaller satellite ghost town known as Deans, which was founded in part to provide Indiana with a railway connection. The site was referred to as "Deans" as late as 1940–1951.
History
Canal development
The history of Indiana, Ontario is heavily connected to the Grand River. The Grand River had long been a focal point for trade and general transportation in the area. The river was shallow at many points, however, which made it relatively easy for westward-travelling settlers to ford with wagons, but difficult for river freight operations. The Grand River Navigation Company was formed in the early 1830s (after a set of meetings by backers which began as early as 1827) around the idea of canalizing the river with a set of five locks. Before the railway boom in Upper Canada, Ontario's economy was heavily driven by its lake trade, with port cities such as Hamilton and Toronto beginning to industrialize. Canalization, in theory, would connect new and existing settlements along the river to Lake Erie, allowing for easier trade logistics.
Unfortunately for promoters, the land around the Grand River had been granted to the Haudenosaunee Six Nations in 1784 by the Governor Sir Frederick Haldimand under the Haldimand Proclamation, which pledged to the Haudenosaunee an allotment of land "six miles deep from each side of the river beginning at Lake Erie and extending in that proportion to the head of the said river, which them and their posterity are to enjoy for ever." The Six Nations opposed the canal development project. This resulted in a land dispute between the promoters of the company and the Six Nations. When the company was finally chartered, it was with the Six Nations as its largest shareholder; these shares had likely been purchased by the government of Upper Canada on behalf of Six Nations without their knowledge, in order to give them a financial stake in the project. Over the years, the government continued to purchase shares on behalf of the Six Nations, until they owned over of the company.
In 1833, construction began on the first lock at a location known as Grand River Rapids, which was the place that would soon become Indiana. This made Indiana the first natural stopping point along the river en route to Brantford. The new town quickly boomed in population, with David Thompson, a prominent businessman and financial backer of the Grand River Navigation Company, taking an interest in it. The oldest surviving document referring to the place as "Indiana" was a letter written in 1833. Other early documents which used the new name include an 1834 advertisement placed by Thompson soliciting for canal workers at Indiana and an 1835 petition by townspeople for the government to construct a bridge across the river. A prominent lumber merchant, Thomas Lester, arrived in 1837.
Heyday
By the early 1840s, the Grand River Navigation Company had begun to collapse, and Thompson divested himself from it by selling most of his shares to the Six Nations and distancing himself publicly from the company. Lots in Indiana were sold off by the company piecemeal along with general land sales to buttress its finances; Thompson personally purchased almost two dozen lots. Perhaps originally intended as a planned company town similar to many mill towns of the era, development was instead varied, with numerous small rural-industrial enterprises, as well as a diverse housing stock that included frame, brick, log, and stone houses, with the vast majority built out of wood. Only 50 to 60 of the over one hundred lots were ever built on, despite a population of 714 in the 1830s.