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News
Elweel Ferry
celebrating 100 years of moving connecting lower
Bladen
By JEFFERSON
WEAVER Staff Writer
In 1905, Walter H. and
John R. Russ appeared before the Bladen County
Commissioners with Dr. W.H. G. Lucas. They had an
idea.
At the time, residents
along the Lower Cape Fear River had no easy access
between east and west. The Elizabethtown bridge
was more than 20 years in the future, and the
Blackrock Bridge was decades away. Ferries were
commonly used up and down the river, but there was
none between Pender County and Elizabethtown at
the time.
Exercising a right
granted exclusively to county boards for 150
years, the commissioners approved the Russ'
request to build and operate a ferry. They wanted
to name it the Elwell Ferry, after a "pioneer
family in the area. "
A century later, the
Elwell Ferry is one of the last inland free
ferries in the east. Hundreds of visitors each
year pass between Carver's Creek and Kelly on the
ferry, which runs daily except for Christmas, and
only closes during foul weather. The ferry had
been featured in publications and television
programs about North Carolina.
The Russ brothers
probably didn't think about leaving a legacy in
the Kelly community. They were probably more
concerned with opening up traffic between the two
sides of the river, and making it easier for
farmers to move crops to the railroad depot at
Council.
But before they could
begin hauling horse-drawn wagons and carts and
eventually, motor vehicles, the men had some
backbreaking work to do.
The brothers bought a
right of way on either side of the river from Mrs.
David Robeson, and built a wood-reinforced road to
the river. They then built the ferry of wood cut
and sawn in the Kelly area.
According to a
privately published history about the ferry, the
late Lee Roy Russ described the boat his father
Walter and Uncle John built as 33 feet long, 12
feet wide, and 20 inches deep. Planks provided a
ramp and a flat surface for vehicle
wheels.
The boat was built
upside down on the shore, according to an
interview with Lee Roy Russ. Oakum-stringy cords
of hemp rope-was stuffed into the spaces between
the planks of the boat. Hemp was still a common
crop in Bladen County in the early 1900's, and
substandard hemp was commonly used to seal boats
and even roofs.
Lee Roy Russ recalled
how the men moved the ferry to the water with
poles, the used another boat to turn it upright.
As the wood swelled and the seam became tight with
the sticky oakum, they finished work on the
interior. Walter Russ built the new ferries for
Elizabethtown and Tar Heel as well, and supplied
the tools to work the simple boats.
The ferry wasn't
always free.
Since opening up
commerce and communications between the sides of
the river was beneficial for everyone, the county
commissioners paid the Russ Brothers $25 a month
for the first few years. If the ferry was needed
on Sunday, the fare was 25 cents until 9 p.m., and
50 cents thereafter.
Later the ferry
operated strictly on a toll basis, and
transportation cost 25 cents per vehicle. It was
at that time that Lee Roy and his brother Cameron
Russ helped their father.
The Russ family lived
about a half mile from the ferry on the Kelly
side, and prospective passengers would "holler"
when they needed to cross.
The operator pulled
the ferry upstream with a metal-shod gig pole-a
long, heavy pole with a blacksmith-made hook and a
point-to maneuver the ferry if it got off course.
He would then use oars to maneuver the boat to the
opposite shore. If he missed-a rare occurrence,
according to the booklet-the ferry operator could
use the gig pole to pull the boat back to the
landing.
Well before the Russ
brothers started their ferry, someone of extreme
physical prowess was said to be "stronger than a
ferryman's arm." Pulling a two-ton flatboat loaded
with a ton of farm animals and another half-ton of
wagon and produce, upstream against the Cape Fear
River, would make this term an apt one. Nervous
horses had to be blindfolded to be led aboard the
flat boat.
Lee Roy Russ was nine
or ten years old, according to the Elwell Ferry
book, when he first transported a mule and cart
across by himself. His father watched-probably
nervously-from the opposite bank.
"I don't know which
one of us was prouder," Russ said.
Motor vehicles cause
complications
When the first cars
came to the Kelly area in 1916, both drivers of
the newfangled contraptions and the ferry
operators had to make some adjustments.
Some early cars could
roll if they were left out of gear, even when the
brake was set. As even the modern gasoline-powered
ferry must rock slightly to land passengers, this
could and did lead to more than one car or truck
sliding off the ferry and into the Cape Fear. Some
were recovered and brought back into service,
while others still rest somewhere on the river
bottom.
One driver had a sense
of humor about his experience. When Hayes Peterson
accidentally drove his Chevrolet off the ferry and
into the river, the Russ brothers' quick work
saved his automobile. They even recovered he car,
but Mr. Peterson was reluctant to try the trip
again.
"Why sir," he
reportedly said, "I will have to blindfold my car
to get it back on the ferry, I expect."
Lee Roy and Phillip
Pridgen reportedly ended up with their first car,
a Ford, because the owner drove off the end of the
ferry. He sold the car to the two young men for
the price of two new tires he'd just had
installed. The young men hooked a chain to the
car, recovered it, and put it back on the road,
complete with the new tires.
When Wash Braddy's
brakes failed, his 470 Buick coupe ended up in the
river, too, as he and his sister were headed to a
social. Captain Russ helped recover the car, which
was only slightly harmed. The event gave rise to a
short story published in Down Our Way, a
collection of tales by Jane Sanderlin
Morgan.
Another time, an
attempt to help the hardworking ferry operator
went badly wrong.
James Moore and Joseph
Pridgen were traveling across the river in Liston
Pridgen's truck, loaded down with corn. As the
ferry approached the far bank, Moore decided to
back the truck up to put more weight toward the
stern of the ferry, allowing the ramp to more
easily contact the bank. He ended up driving the
truck, corn crop and all, off the back of the
ferry-but the force of the truck pushing against
the back of the ferry did cause it to land much
faster than usual.
Changing
times
The ferry landings at
Elwell give visitors a snapshot of many of the
things that find their way into the
river.
Trash, logs, boating
equipment and fishing gear regularly turn up at
the ramps. When the ferryman isn't moving cars and
trucks across the river, he or she can often be
found picking up debris along the
riverbank.
J.C. McDuffie was a
ferryman in the 1970's, running the modern
gasoline powered ferry that still crosses the
river today, when he found an old pull
stick.
Pull sticks-a simple
tool shaped like an oversized paddle with a notch
for a cable-were used by ferry operators when the
state took over the ferry system in the 1930's.
The new ferries ran on a cable that stretched
across the river. When cargo boats-pulpwood,
fertilizer and fuel barges, along with a few relic
steamboats-came by, the cable would be dropped to
the bottom until the vessel went by.
The operator would
simply hook the hickory pull stick over the cable
and haul on its six foot length, sliding the stick
along the cable and moving the ferry across the
river. While less backbreaking than rowing, the
use of the pull sticks of the 1930's was still
hard work. McDuffie presented the antique to Lee
Roy Russ.
The pignut hickory
pull stick would soon became history alongside
Walter Russ' handmade oars. A gasoline ferry was
put to work in 1939. In just three years, the
ferry that had run without loss of life since 1905
would claim its first victim-the operator, Walter
Russ.
Sabotage? Or
Accident?
World War II was
raging, and German U-boats were hunting cargo
ships off the Carolina coast. Rumors of Nazi
saboteurs sneaking ashore to cause mischief were
reported by newspapers-and when a handful of real
German spies turned up in Carolina Beach, the
whole region became worried.
On March 1, 1942, the
ferry exploded.
Residents reported
hearing the explosion for miles. Lee Roy was
visiting friends in Reigelwood, and heard the
explosion.
Woodrow Norris, the
night ferryman, had gone home around 7 a.m. He
rushed to the scene when the explosion awakened
him, and pulled Russ from the river. He died
within minutes.
All through the area,
people worried the explosion was caused by a mine
laid by spies to destroy the locks at Reigelwood.
Others speculated the blast was an attempt to
destroy a gasoline flat that had just passed
through the area.
Sheriff Manley Clark
called for the river to be dragged, and no
evidence of a vehicle was found. Further
investigation showed the explosion was likely
caused by a spark that ignited gasoline fumes in
the bilges of the boat. Moments before, Russ had
carried Pearl Cromartie across the
river.
Russ was 72, and
reportedly planned to retire from the ferry that
July.
Only four other
fatalities have occurred on the ferry-two men who
jumped overboard in 1967, and two others who were
pulling an overweight vehicle onto the ferry in
1994.
Little noticed
landmark
In 1968, the first
steel ferry came to Elwell. Still, the only
signage for this institution are the state highway
department signs on N.C. 53 and N.C. 87, and large
wooden signs directing travelers to the landing.
There's no mention on either of the history behind
this oldest surviving connector between Kelly and
Carver's Creek.
Richard Smith and the
Kelly Historical Society hope to change that. The
group is working to erect a state historical
marker on N.C. 53 at Elwell Ferry Road.
"This is a major part
of our community," Smith said recently. "This is a
landmark, and a lot of folks from all over the
state come through to ride the ferry on the way to
beach."
The Society applied
for the marker earlier this year.
"We hope we can get
it," Smith said. "This is something that needs to
be recognized."
The Society is
currently working to establish a museum in the old
Centerville Baptist Church. Among the items the
group expects to display are photos and artifacts
relating to the century-old ferry.
"Everybody rides the
ferry sometime," Smith said. "It's always been a
part of our lives."
The ferry today is run
by a private contractor, under the authority of
the N.C. Dept. of Transportation. Crossguards warn
drivers of going too far down the ramp, and chains
are installed to prevent cars from rolling off the
tiny boat. The operator sits in a tiny metal and
glass cabin, instead of on a small stool like Lee
Roy Russ used when he rowed the first ferry across
under the watchful eye of his father. A lot of
things have changed about the ferry since
1905.
Many things haven't.
It's common to see deer swim the channel to escape
hunting dogs. Fish regularly break the surface. In
spring and summer, hordes of mosquitoes and yellow
flies annoy the ferry operator and travelers
alike.
But just like it did a
century ago, the ferry still crosses the Cape
Fear, linking eastern and western Bladen
County.
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