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Crossing
the Waters:
Ferries
in Virginia
Back
in 1973, John Boy Walton helped restore service on
the Hatton Ferry, destroyed the year before by
Hurricane Agnes. The storm almost ended the historic
ferry’s service, until the Virginia Department of
Transportation agreed to replace the damaged vessel.
At the new service’s dedication, Richard
Thomas, the star of the TV series "The
Waltons," took the inaugural ride. Set in
the Blue Ridge mountains, the show was based on the
childhood memories of nearby Schuyler, Va., resident
and author Earl
Hamner.
The
Hatton Ferry,
located on the James River near Scottsville, is one
of two remaining poled ferries in the United States.
Along this stretch of the James and nearby Rivanna
Rivers, ferries date to 1729 and at one time there
were 18 on these waterways. In the late 1870s, James
A. Brown began operating a store and ferry on the
Hatton Ferry site. In 1881, the store became a
railroad stop and several years later, Brown was
allowed to open a post office in his store. A young
federal postal officer named Hatton signed the
authorizing papers and lent his name to the ferry.
The
state has operated the ferry since 1940 and today it
can carry 12 people or two cars the 700 yards across
the James. The boat has a flat-bottom with a deck a
few inches above the waterline. It operates through
a system of cables. A cable is attached to one end
of the boat and guided by an overhead wire that
connects the two river banks. The cable system helps
control the boat and harness the natural power of
the river. As the ferry approaches the riverbank,
the ferryman rolls up the cable on the boat’s
stern and uses his pole to guide the boat into the
landing.
As
with many of Virginia’s ferries, in the early
days, the Hatton Ferry carried everything from
buggies to cattle, lumber and farm produce. Such
loads could easily sink a ferry, particularly if the
front end was too heavy. One such incident almost
occurred when a donkey, tied to others, tried to
drink from the river. A ferryman quickly cut the
rope that held the animals together before the boat
capsized (Scottsdale
Museum).
In
contrast to the tiny Hatton service, another VDOT-operated
ferry, the Jamestown-Scotland
Ferry carries more than one million vehicles a
year. It is the only 24-hour state-run ferry
operation in Virginia. Four boats with capacities
ranging from 28 to 70 cars ply the James between
Glass House Point in Jamestown and Scotland. The
boats have carried country music stars, celebrities
such as the King of Sweden, as well as commuters
traveling from places such as Williamsburg to
Smithfield Foods. The service employs 80 people.
“I’ve
been on the water since I got out of high school,”
Jamestown-Scotland ferryman Bucky Stewart, a
30-year-plus veteran told the Virginia
Department of Transportation Bulletin in 2003.
“You meet all kinds of people.” He also admitted
seeing all kinds of minor calamities, from
passengers dropping their keys in the water, cars
that refused to start or ferries that had run
aground or out of gas.
The
Hatton and Jamestown-Scotland ferries are only two
of seven
ferry services operated by the state or local
Virginia governments. Others include the Elizabeth
River Ferry between Hampton and Norfolk. It
includes three 150-passenger paddle-wheel ferry
boats. One of these is the world’s first natural
gas-powered pedestrian ferry. There’s also the
Tangier Island passenger-only ferry between
Reedville on the Northern Neck and Tangier Island; White's
Ferry on the Potomac between Leesburg and
Poolesville, MD; the Sunnybank Ferry in
Northumberland County which crosses the Little
Wicomico River; and the Merry Point Ferry in
Lancaster County, which crosses the western end of
the Corrotoman River.
Perhaps
the largest ferry service in the Old Dominion became
obsolete in 1964 when the Chesapeake Bay Bridge
Tunnel opened. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Virginia
Ferry Corporation operated seven ferries that
carried residents and their vehicles from
Virginia’s eastern shore to the Hampton Roads
area. Prior to the ferry service, the only way for
vehicles to reach the Hampton Roads area and towns
further south from the Eastern Shore was to go north
through Maryland and then down the western shore of
Virginia. The trip could take several days.
Ferries
may seem quaint to many, but for others they are a
way of life. Commuter Richard Bauernschmidt is so
devoted to his daily ferry ride on the Jamestown-
Scotland service that he has license tags that read
RIVER XER.
“The
Waltons” lasted only nine seasons; Virginia’s
ferries may be around a bit longer.
NEXT:
Emu of Virginia: Exotic Beasts in the Old Dominion.
--
July 10, 2006
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