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Sunday, October 23, 2011

The Haunting of Hindostan Falls


The East Fork of the White River widens as it winds through the rolling countryside of Martin County rippling over a shelf of flat stone as it continues downstream. There’s not much here now, just woodlands crowding the riverbanks and a few fisherman with their rods poised over the sparkling water.

Hindostan Falls was a much livelier place two centuries ago after the founding of Hindostan (named after a British soldier who had served time in India) in 1816, a town with a booming population that reached 1200 by 1820 making it one of the largest settlements in this part of Indiana.  Poised on one of the new state’s first stage coach runs connecting New Albany and Vincennes, Hindostan boasted two mills, a hotel, whetstone factory, post office and even a button factory.  Ferries made their way between the river’s two banks and houseboats moored on its waters.

Time wasn’t kind to Hindostan and today all that’s left of the thriving community are some square cuts in the flat rocks where one of the mills used to be anchored and stories of spirits haunting Hindostan Falls.

Some towns just fade away, but much of Hindostan disappeared much quicker, many of its townspeople wiped out by a terrible sickness – yellow fever or cholera or even, some say, the plague.  Homes where entire families had died were burned to the ground and mass graves, some holding a hundred or so, were dug and then hastily filled up.

“I don’t really believe in ghost tales,” my friend Brandi tells me, “but I remember going to the falls with some friends and none of us had ever been so scared in our lives.”

So what are these restless spirits looking for as they wander the woods near Hindostan Falls? Maybe the silver and gold coins said to have been hoarded by a tax collector who died during the sickness and the money forever lost.




Today, Louisville, Kentucky which in 1810 had a population in size similar to Hindostan, now numbers in the millions.  Loogootee, four miles away from the falls and the only official city in Martin County, is no larger than that of Hindostan all those years ago.

9 comments:

  1. Spent many nights camping in Hindostan and about a mile down stream at a spot called the sand bar, a lot of people have drowned around the falls and Sand bar, I would credit that to drinking and partying , I don't ever recall any spirits other then the kind in a bottle.

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  2. Wasn't a girl raped out there? And definitely gotta find the stash! With the way economy is going!

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  3. Back in the early 70s,I Used to night fish on the rock, some times staying all night with my dad & other friends. Sorry, but we never saw or heard any ghosts. Not saying they aren't there, just we didn't see anything odd.

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  4. In the late 40's my parents and I went camping and fishing with our neighbors at Hindoston Falls and my Dad almost drowned in a whirlpool around a bend from where we camped. A fisherman saved him with his long fishing pole . He held it out for Dad to grab the very end of it and he pulled Dad in. The fisherman said he fished there for that very reason. He saved some and some he didnt.

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    1. Wow! That's an amazing story! I'm glad that fisherman was there to save your dad's life and the other's who didn't realize what they were getting themselves into.

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  5. No one seems to know about all the lives lost around 1820 when a wagon train was crossing the river. They arrived in the evening and darkness was falling on them an they were told not to stay there over night because the sickness of the plaque. Mrs. Frankie Ann Tomey and her 6 children was the second wagon to cross. A smaller lead horse and the icy river the wagon was about 2/3rd of the way across when the lead horse got spooked. It got tangled in the leads and soon the other horses got tangled. The driver was riding on the lead horse and tried to get them loose but had loaned his knife that morning for someone to skin a deer. It was not long till the wagon, horses and all went sweeping over the falls. Little 5 year old George Washington Tomey pulled himself upon a trunk that had fallen out of the wagon. The trunk bobbed up and down and carried him down the river to safety. It is not known if the bodies of the others were ever discovered. My grandfather was a grandson to George Washington Tomey. Our family owes so much to him and his fast thinking or we would not be here today.

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