Extracts from American newspapers, relating to New Jersey
1704-1775, Volume 24
by William Nelson Books by William Nelson
| Analysis The above ad for 235-acre property on Pennington Road proved very useful. From our known location of Howell's Ferry on the New Jersey side near the railroad, I drew a 3-mile arc and marked where it crossed Pennington Road. The distance from that mark to the City of Trenton was 4-miles. Therefore, the advertisement 1) supports our location for Howell's Ferry near the railroad, 2) indicates that Howell's Ferry was the same ferry operation as the one referred to as "late" Yardley's Ferry, and 3) indicates the ferry at the railroad was owned by Howell on Dec 13, 1764. |
| The Ferry Crossing Near the Railroad Bridge (Owned by Howell on Dec 13, 1764) On the Yardley side of the river, ferry road locations and ferry operations constantly changed as they unfolded over 150-years (1690 to 1840). Roads on our side of the river were located by an analysis of deeds, road returns, hand compass surveys, and as described in my Letter to Jim Ceglia, P.E., Civil Engineer & Land Surveyor in New Hope, PA. I did not do this type of investigation on the New Jersey side because I felt others were working on it. However, I did walk all the roads, and the ice flow on January 20, 1996 completely cleared off the east bank of the river allowing me to inspect the entire area between Route 29 and the water's edge where I could still see parts of the industrial water canal. Except for the obvious proximity of Lower Ferry Road, it was mainly our work on the Pennsylvania side and finding the 1763 ferry road, and the precise location of ferry ramp in front of the White Farmhouse that pointed to the most probable location of the ferry site on the New Jersey side. In early January 2000, I found a web site under the name of William Green, located right across the Delaware River from Yardley. The site was operated by Bill O'Neal, related to the Green's by marriage. On October 27, 2000 Bill and Heidi Herenza from Ewing Township, came to our home in Yardley and the three of us inspected the various ferry sites along the river. On Dec 4, 2000 I received an email from Bill O'Neal describing a circa 1778 ferry crossing in the vicinity of the railroad bridge, identifying the ferry as "Howels alias Yardleys Ferry" and as follows: "...The map shows three groups of broken lines crossing the "De1aware River" depicting the route of a ferry between Ewing and Yardley, Two of the lines angle out from the New Jersey side, their vertex lying just north of stream (which must be Gold Run) and an island (which must be Rotary Is1and"). The is1and must be misplaced on the map, since it Is depicted as extending northward a tad past Go1d Run, and this is not the case, This ferry used a triangular route the exact opposite of the one you imagine for Green's Ferry, since in this case the vertex lies in New Jersey, not in Pennsylvania. The third broken line crosses a bit north of the other two..." Within a month or so after sending the above email, Bill O'Neal had published a copy of the Erskine's sketch on his web site. We exchanged numerous emails analyzing it, and it remained posted for about 9-years until he recently undertook to reconstruct his entire website. |
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Recently I've learned about the accuracy of Erskine's work, and the fact that he was in effect endorsed by Washington. This caused me to revisit the topic of Howell's ferry. As far as I was aware, no new information had been published on Howell's ferry by local historians or anywhere else, except for the 2004 maps in David Hackett Fischer's "Pulitzer Prize" winning book which I spotted at Barnes & Nobel in 2005, and which except for looking at the maps, I did not buy or read at that time. It will take some time to explain how the ferry road locations in the immediate vicinity of both sides of the river as shown on pages 194, 213, 229 of Fischer's book do not match-up with our findings. Admittedly we're focused for the most part on a strip of land no more than 1,000-feet wide on both sides of the river. More later... [Rev 9-27-10] |
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BEAR TAVERN ROAD BRIDGE OVER JACOBS CREEK HOPEWELL TOWNSHIP, MERCER COUNTY, NEW JERSEY PHASE IA ARCHEOLOGICAL STUDY Prepared for County of Mercer Office of the Engineer 640 South Broad Street, Fourth Floor Trenton, New Jersey 08650 by Douglas C. McVarish Rebecca W. Yamin, Ph.D., RPA JOHN MILNER ASSOCIATES, INC. 1216 Arch Street, Fifth Floor Philadelphia, PA 19107 January 2010 Extract Page 15: "...Erskine's 1779 map, "Road from Pennington to Slack's Ferry and from ditto to Trenton and Howell's Ferry" (Figure 3). This map, the original of which is in the New York Historical Society... According to John P. Snyder in his study of the mapping of New Jersey in the Revolutionary War, Erskine was the most skilled and most accurate mapmaker of the Revolutionary War period (Snyder 1975:12-13)." "Evidence of Robert Erskine's attention to detail is found in a letter he addressed to George Washington after being appointed as Cartographer and Surveyor General of the American Army. The letter reads in part:..." (see page 15 of January 2010 Report - goto previous page to find link) |
Summary: In 1764 the ferry was identified (in the advertisement) as Howell's (late Yardley's) Ferry In 1778 the ferry was identified (on the Erskine Map) as Howell's (alias Yardleys) Ferry.. Further information is provided in the following links: Letter to Annamae Bakun, President, Yardley Historical Association, Dated 7-23-1999 Scenario for Development & Operation of the Yardley-Ewing Ferry, Dated 2-15-2001 Return to Ferry Chronology Return to Yardley's Ferry - Road Network Information Return to Susan Taylor Ltr #2 |