Before there were bridges, communities along the James and other rivers in Virginia depended on barges that were powered by boatmen with long poles who could push people and products from one side to the other. The first began in 1643 and by 1823 there were a thousand of them operating nationwide.
“You take the pole and get it at the right angle to the river floor and then push as best you can," explains Sterling Howell. He oversees the last poled ferry in this country -- near Scottsville, taking tourists and school groups on a 200-yard trip that can take 45 minutes.
“There are probably five different currents running right through here, so when you first start off from the Scottsville side it’ll take maybe five minutes to get across, but then trying to take off from the Buckingham side it takes a lot longer, because the water on that side of the river is running much slower,” Howell says.
And on some days it’s too shallow to cross.
“If the river is running below four feet the ferry is going to hit rocks along the way and get stuck. Just down river from where the ferry crosses there’s a rock, and if you can see the tip of the rock, then you know it’s at exactly four feet and at that point we don’t want to run.”
If it’s higher than eight feet, crossing is too dangerous. Howell is hoping for ideal conditions Saturday when the public is invited to hop aboard any time between 10 and 2 and to stick around for a ceremony celebrating public support for the ferry. Fierce weather put it out of business in 2020.
“A winter storm washed it up on shore," he recalls. "It got tangled in the trees, and it’s a 50-thousand-pound steel barge, so getting it back on the river required renting a very large crane.”
That expense, the cost of insurance and inspections grounded the ferry, but this spring – with donations from the Margaret Hulvey Wright Family and other ferry fans it’s back and will offer tree transportation through October.
For more information or to volunteer to assist with river crossings, write to hattonferry@albemarlehistory.org
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
