For more than three centuries, long before bridges became common, Americans crossed rivers by pole-driven ferry.
The fate of the last such ferry in the United States will be decided at 2 p.m. (Eastern time) today by a vote of the Albemarle County, Virginia, Board of Supervisors.
You have a chance to change its fate.
Hatton Ferry, which crosses the James River at Scottsville, Virginia, has fallen victim to budget cuts by the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT). If the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors fails to fund its continued operation, it will cease to exist, and a method of travel once essential to Virginian and American life will vanish.
The basic technology of pole-driven ferries is simple: a person propels the ferry across the river by pushing off the river bottom with a pole. In recent centuries pole-driven ferries have often also been cable ferries: to stabilize the ferry in the river currents, a cable of some kind (originally a rope) is strung across the river and the ferry attached to it by another cable or cables that can be adjusted by winching. Hatton Ferry is controlled by both poles and cables.
Numerous illustrations of Hatton Ferry are here (scroll down to see all).
For historic illustrations of other such ferries, see here, here, and
here (lower image). (Click on thumbnails for larger views)
For more images, search on the text string
pole ferry
at Google Images.
If you are able, PLEASE CONTACT THE ALBEMARLE COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS at bos@albemarle.org TO URGE FUNDING OF HATTON FERRY so that this remarkable link with Virginia’s and the nation’s past will not disappear.
YOU CAN ALSO CONTACT THE VDOT COMMISSIONER WHO DE-FUNDED THE FERRY, David S. Ekern, at David.Ekern@vdot.virginia.gov, to urge him to reverse his decision.
You can also CONTACT GOVERNOR KAINE via http://www.governor.virginia.gov/... .
If you are a Virginia resident, you can also CONTACT YOUR LEGISLATORS via http://legis.state.va.us/... .
Hatton Ferry’s annual operating budget is officially $21,000, but in 2008, it cost Virginia only between $7,000 and $8,000.* Especially with some minimal advertising, Albemarle County and/or the Commonwealth of Virginia could make up that amount in revenue from those of us who will continue to visit Hatton Ferry to journey uniquely in its way of the past.
(For more information, please see the Web site of the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society and this AP story.)
Thank you!
* Source:
Charlottesville Daily Progress, June 4, 2009.
UPDATE: THANK YOU to all who spoke up in support of Hatton Ferry. As cville townie noted below, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors on July 1 extended funding until October 1, which though far short of permanent support buys time that may be sufficient for long-term private funding to be secured. For more information, contact the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society, which will be taking the lead on further efforts to preserve this unique piece of Virginia's, and the nation's, history.