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 (How
Virginians Move).
“The Waltons” lasted only nine seasons;
Virginia’s ferries may be around a bit longer.
July 10, 2006
Nice & Curious
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