By: Iris Naylor
Before the Delaware River was spanned by bridges, travel across the river from New Hope to Lambertville was accomplished by means of a ferry, named for the current owner Coryell’s Ferry, Well’s Ferry, etc.
A bridge across the Delaware was a huge improvement. Lambertville opened its bridge to traffic in 1814. No longer did travel across the river carry the risk of an unexpected dunk in the water.
The biggest problem faced by the ferries before the bridges were built was rafts. Frank Dale in his "Delaware Diary" said rafts had no brakes, and in high water the heavily loaded rafts were hard to steer.
The People’s Beacon mentioned the heaviest raft that ever ran down the Delaware started in Narrowsburg, N.Y., April 1861 and ended in Philadelphia, bringing it right past the Lambertville-New Hope shores. The raft carried 255 tons of timber, and eight people were required to keep it under control.
Had it been April 1841, a ferry crossing the river might be in big trouble. Actually, ferries were running between Lambertville and New Hope April 1841. The reason was the flood in January of that year. In those days it was called a freshet (meaning, according to the dictionary, a sudden rise or overflow of a stream). The flood damaged or destroyed all of the bridges between Easton and Trenton.
So, April 1, 1841, the day of fools’ pranks, the ferry was loaded with the household goods of Jonathan Randolph and his family who were heading west and the household goods of Johnson Pidcock and his family who were going to a new home in New Hope.
It wasn’t a raft that caused the downfall of the ferry. It was the second pier from the Pennsylvania side of the ruined covered bridge. The river was high, the current was swift, and the ferry was loaded. The ferry broke in half, and people and belongings were tossed into the river.
One spectator described it, "The scene was most appalling; men, women and children struggling in the water, and screaming for help, horses drowning, and the dismay and alarm of the people on both shores of the river, was such a sight as I hope never again to witness."
There were 17 people on board at the time of the accident. Four of them, a boatman named Torbert Wesner, two Pidcock children and 18-year-old Caroline Rose, were drowned. One of the survivors, Peter Akers, brother-in-law to Jonathan Randolph, was the only person not thrown from the boat. He was caught between the boat and the pier and, therefore, in a good position to lend aid to several of the other passengers.
Call it luck or call it fate or call it "being in the right place (in the boat) at the right time." Mr. Akers did survive, although his possessions after the accident consisted of the clothes on his back and less than $50 in his pocket. He also had learned the tanning business, and he had the determination to continue west despite the loss of his team.
Thirty-five years later, he wrote The Beacon from his home in Oberlin, Ohio. Having just completed a visit to the Philadelphia Centennial and a side trip to Lambertville, he was anxious to make sure old friends had his correct address so they could write him.
His description of his escape from the damaged ferry and his rescue of several of the passengers, contained this paragraph: "I discovered Mr. John Rose, a man 70 years old, hanging to the boat, although the boat was fast breaking in two pieces. I again descended to the boat and rescued Mr. Rose the same way as the others; my feet left the boat and the boat the pier simultaneously, one half on either side of the pier, and (the boat) was 100 feet below the bridge before I could jump up into the window and run across to the opposite window."
