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 Virginia and in the United States  
will be decided at 2 p.m. (Eastern time) today by a vote of the  
Albemarle County Board of Supervisors.  Although VA-HIST is for  
excellent reasons not an advocacy list, I'd like to suggest that this  
issue warrants an exception today, inasmuch as the matter is urgently  
historical rather than political.

Hatton Ferry, which crosses the James River at Scottsville, 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 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 at http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=467561 
  (scroll down to see all).

For historic illustrations of other such ferries, see
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8a40088
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8d39831
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3b00146 (lower image)
     (Click on thumbnails for larger views)

For more images, search on the text string
pole ferry
at http://images.google.com/

If you are able, PLEASE CONTACT THE ALBEMARLE COUNTY BOARD OF  
SUPERVISORS at [log in to unmask]  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 [log in to unmask] , to urge him to  
reverse his decision.

You can also CONTACT GOVERNOR KAINE via http://www.governor.virginia.gov/AboutTheGovernor/contactGovernor.cfm 
  .

You can also CONTACT YOUR LEGISLATORS via http://legis.state.va.us/1_cit_guide/contacting_my.html 
  .

Hatton Ferry’s annual operating budget is officially $21,000, but in  
2008, it cost Virginia only between $7,000 and $8,000  (source:  
Charlottesville Daily Progress, June 4, 2009: http://www.dailyprogress.com/cdp/news/local/article/board_explores_ways_to_rescue_hatton_ferry/41051/ 
  ).  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, http://www.albemarlehistory.org/ ,  
and the AP story at http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_LAST_FERRY?SITE=FLDAY&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT 
  .)

Thank you!

--Jurretta J. Heckscher







______________________________________
To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html