CART, CARL R. "Researching Ghost Towns" Treasure Facts Oct./Nov. 1994: 24-26.
Carl Cart's magazine article "Researching Ghost Towns" addresses the unusual subject of ghost town investigation in the Midwest.
Ghost towns are well-known in the American Western states, most often as the ruins of boom-and-bust mining towns of the late 19th century. But the Old West was not the only part of the U.S. to see cities fail and fade away. Changes in trade routes, shifting economic demands, and even disease occasionally left cities and towns deserted in territories east of the Mississippi River just as various factors did in the West. But a critical difference for the archaeologist or historian is that in the better-watered eastern lands rich with soil and vegetation, the remains of former towns have decayed much more rapidly and much more thoroughly than their Western counterparts.
In his article, Cart describes his search for one such community in the state of Indiana, a town called Hindostan that was founded on the banks of the White River in 1819. An early traveler's report had described the town as "fluorishing," with "much building in progress... it promises to become a pleasant, healthy town before I see it again." Hindostan served as the Martin County seat, and came to boast two large grist mills, several sawmills, and various small manufacturers serving the settlers of the new state of Indiana. Yet only a few decades later, Hindostan was not to be seen on any map. What had happened? Had the name changed, or had the town really disappeared? And if it really was a Midwestern ghost town, what traces might remain at its former site?
Investigation of this obscure subject required that Cart undertake a field trip to Martin County. Local folklore and archival research is Cart's specialty, and his familiarity with the use of these resources served him well on the Hindostan project. County Recorder files were able to furnish Cart with a look at the 1820 plat map of an expansion addition to the fine little community, with new street names and lots marked out and surveyed for the growing town. This information allowed Cart to place the town's location much more precisely--and yet it corresponded to no modern community. In microfilm files Cart finally found the explanation of Hindostan's fate. A record noted that by 1833 it was virtually depopulated, its former citizens evacuated or dead from the dreaded scourge of cholera.
Cart traveled to the site where he had calculated that Hindostan once stood, using his map and geographical data carefully to locate what he believed was the correct spot. He found only open parkland and shady forest along the small but beautiful White River. Green grass, trees, and vegetation had reclaimed the site and eradicated seemingly every trace of the former community, whose land now lay within the boundaries of a state park and fishing reserve.
Cart roved the fields and woods, looking for anything that might attest the former presence of a town in this wilderness. Based on his observation of waterfalls and a bend in the White River that were marked on the 1820 plat map, Cart was certain that he was in the right location--but he was unable to find even a single foundation stone from any of the buildings that once stood in Hindostan. Was he in the wrong spot, or had an entire town vanished completely?
In the end Cart stood looking upon proof that he was indeed in the right place. About a thousand yards from the river, atop a hill, lay the remains of the tiny Hindostan graveyard. The overgrown stone markers were the final visible traces attesting that a lively community had once flourished here, in a town now completely erased by time.
As always, Cart weaves into his story the importance of working with local authorities, and the need for keeping diligent records of one's work and discoveries. He also quietly serves as a model of his values, refraining from using a metal detector to search out possible traces of the town because the state park officials had asked him not to.
"Treasure Facts" magazine served an audience of self-described treasure hunters and metal detector enthusiasts--the very same group that is often at odds with professional archaeologists who decry their destructive illegal excavations of historical and prehistoric sites. But it is only in reaching out to such an audience that we can hope to convince them of the importance of responsible investigation and of the discipline of restraint in the face of "treasure hunt fever" and an itch to go digging. A skillful storyteller, Cart uses an intriguing narrative to carry his points rather than adopting a preaching tone that would merely fall on deaf ears. In doing so he carries on the Phaeton mandate of broad public outreach.
