Hidden History: Ferry propulsion through the years

Courtesy photos

by Robert Herron

Town Historian Emeritus

Rocky Hill is blessed with deep and interesting history from dinosaurs to modern enterprise. The Rocky-Hill-Glastonbury ferry, since it is still in operation after almost 370 years, is one of our most-valued treasures.

Most sources cite 1650 as the date of the ferry’s creation although there is no documentation to verify this. Wethersfield farmers were tending crops in South Glastonbury as early as 1639 so there must have been some effective way of crossing the river before 1

650.

We know that the earliest means of ferry propulsion was poling. Two strong men grounded long poles at the bottom of the river and pushed the barge forward.

This sounds simple until you do it. Poling the barge against the river’s strong current must have required substantial upper body strength and a strong knowledge of the river’s currents to keep the ferry on course.

As traffic on the ferry increased, poling became much less practical. The next means of propulsion was oars, also called sweeps. This involved two or more rowers, an equal number on each side, with someone operating a tiller at the rear of the boat. This was clearly an improvement over poling and allowed for larger, heavier cargos.

The next evolutionary step in propulsion, horses, was a major step forward in that it relied less on human strength and allowed for larger heavier cargos. A treadmill below decks was powered by two horses.

They walked in a circle on the treadmill which drove a paddle wheel which moved the ferry. This replaced human power with horsepower and was a vast improvement.

The exact date when propulsion changed from horsepower to steam is unclear. We know that James Killam of South Glastonbury began operating the ferry in 1860. Killiam was a mechanic and it seems likely that he introduced the first steam ferry. This is reinforced by subsequent events. 

Killam appears in many of the ferry-related land records of the time and seems to be the most likely candidate to have installed the first steam-driven ferry. He ceded control of the ferry to his son-in-law Edward Boynton.

Boynton and the towns of Glastonbury and Rocky Hill were frequently at odds concerning the operation and fees related to the ferries. Boynton resolved the issues in 1865 by absconding and taking the ferry with him.

If Boynton was trying to beat a hasty retreat, a horse-driven ferry would have resulted in a very slow retreat. In all likelihood, the ferry he stole was steam driven.

The records show that a steam ferry named Hollister went into service after Boynton absconded. There are newspaper articles about a ferry named Centennial being put into service in 1876. This is almost certainly an homage to the United States centennial in1876.

We have a photograph of an early steam ferry that seems to be either the Hollister or the Centennial, although we don’t know which it is.

The Centennial was replaced by another steam ferry called the Rocky Hill in 1893. At the time, control of the ferry was on the South Glastonbury side of the river, since Glastonbury was a hub of agricultural and industrial activity, and the entrepreneurs needed a way to get their goods across the river to the Rocky Hill railroad station and highway system on the west bank of the river.

The Rocky Hill was an under-powered vessel with limited storage capacity and a fragile structure that was susceptible to floating ice and debris. The people on the Glastonbury side of the river wanted a more powerful ferry, while the Rocky Hill people were content with things as they were.

The Glastonbury interests resolved the problem by campaigning and ultimately replacing the Rocky Hill with the much more powerful and spacious Nayaug steam ferry. Glastonbury people named the new ferry the Nayaug, which is the native American Wangunk’s name for South Glastonbury, apparently as a way of thumbing their noses at their Rocky Hill neighbors and their under-powered boat.

Steam power ended on the Rocky Hill/Glastonbury ferry when a gasoline-driven tug that pushed a barge was installed and replaced the Nayaug. Steam was becoming an antiquated technology. Gasoline had become the favored fuel for automobiles and was a predictable fuel choice for the ferry.

There is some vagueness about the dates of service of the tug/barge combinations. Newspaper articles say that the Selden/Hollister combination entered service in the mid-1920s but some evidence suggests that a sister ferry, the Pattaconk, may have been used at one time in Rocky Hill. The name Selden is a historic family name in the Hadlyme area and Pattaconk is a region of Chester.

The Selden saw dramatic changes in the ferry’s cargo. In an interview for the July 12, 1942, Hartford Courant Magazine, Capt. Dan Taylor described the change:

“Now the towboat and its 16-ton scow dispatch more than 100 cars with passengers on a busy day … in 1924 … cars were in the minority … many barnyard animals made the crossing and often the barge would be filled with bleating sheep and bellowing cows

.”

The Selden was a wooden boat about 30 feet long. The Hollister was a 60-foot-long wooden barge. It carried three cars or two horse-and-buggy combinati

ons.

Today’s ferry is a diesel-driven tug called the Cumberland that tows a barge called the Hollister. The ferry operates from April 1 to Nov. 30 from Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 6:45 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., as weather and river conditions permit. It is closed on Thanksgiving.

There is a video clip on YouTube of a presentation Capt. Paul Costello did for the Rocky Hill Historical Society that describes the ferry and its history in more detail. RHL