Ferry ’Cross the . . . James?
This is the same map I used last week to talk about the Colonial Parkway. This week I’m going to write about the Jamestown Ferry, which connects “The Peninsula” with “Southside” Virginia. Those are the usual terms to reference these parts of Virginia.
This ferry is the only way to cross the James River between the Benjamin Harrison Bridge (35 miles west of this ferry) and the James River Bridge in Newport News (20 miles east of this ferry). The 15-minute ferry ride is toll-free and operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Only one boat is in operation overnight, with the ferry leaving the Surry terminus on the hour and leaving the Jamestown terminus on the half-hour. During the day the ferries leave each terminus about every 25-30 minutes. Four ferryboats operate on this route:
Powhatan – up to 70 vehicles and 499 passengers
Pocahontas – up to 70 vehicles and 444 passengers
Surry – up to 50 vehicles and 360 passengers
Williamsburg – up to 50 vehicles and 360 passengers
Every once in a while Virginia considers the possibility of building a bridge on this site, but it never gains much traction. The river is wide here, so a bridge would cost a lot. The bridge would have to be either a drawbridge or a high bridge to allow shipping to reach the port of Richmond, 50 miles inland from here. This would add to the cost. A toll bridge would not be feasible, because the rural Southside area does not generate enough traffic for the bridge to pay for itself. Historic preservationists don’t want to impinge on the historic sites on the Jamestown side of the bridge. So I think the ferry will be around for a while. Sometimes we go across the river on the ferry just for the heck of it.
There are some interesting places to visit on the other side of the river. The Surry Seafood Company is a nice restaurant just a couple of miles from the river. In addition, there are a couple of historic sites — Bacon’s Castle and Chippokes Plantation State Park. About 10 miles to the east of the ferry terminus on the Surry County side is the small town of Smithfield, best known for its meat-packing history but also full of charming restaurants and shops.
I have two stories to tell about the ferry.
Over the years, a number of my high school students have attended college at William and Mary. Two girls came home for Thanksgiving one year and told me a story about how they traveled on the ferry. They were out one day, just driving around and talking, and found themselves on what they thought was a bridge. At first the traffic wasn’t moving — and when it started to move, they realized they were driving onto the ferryboat. They asked the ferryboat attendants if they could turn around — they didn’t want to go across the river — but once your on the boat, it’s impossible to turn around without unloading cars already on the boat. So they road across on the ferry to Scotland (the town on the other side), turned around, and had to wait 1/2 hour before they were able to re-board the ferry to come back home.
Once, my son had come to visit me in Williamsburg (Tim hadn’t moved here yet - he stayed in Northern Virginia for 1 1/2 years after I moved here) and we decided to go across on the ferry to eat dinner. When we got to the restaurant on the other side, we realized that the restaurant was closed (it was January and the restaurant closed for the entire month). There was no place else to eat over there, so we drove back to the ferry — just in time to see the boat pull out from the pier. The ferry made the crossing only once an hour at that time of the year, so we had to wait an hour to get back to the Williamsburg side of the river to have dinner. We ate about 8:30, as I recall.