"Harold C. Hill, Jr.'s grand-father, Frank Hill who moved to Baton Rogge was an engineer on boats. Hill's grand-mother Josie Hill died in 1902 in a steamboat boiler explosion. Years later in 1911, his grand-father, Frank Hill died and left two young sons, Harold and Ralph Hill.
Harold Hill's father and uncle were 15 and 13 when their father died. Their mom had died several years before in 1902 and they had no where to live. But several years before their parents died they met some folks from Melville. They were the Israel and Lillie Geeary family who were the parents of Philip and Evelyn Wipple Geeary and his two sisters, Laura Geeary (7th grade teacher) who married Percy Gremillion and Philip's other sister Aubrey Geeary and Doug Duggan who are the parents of Johnny Duggan.
Hill's father Harold C. Hill, Sr. and uncle Ralph Hill made contact with Mrs. Israel Geeary and she helped them move to Melville and get a job in a logging camp. They worked for several years in the Melville logging camp before taking a job on a railroad ferry at Angola.
Harold C. Hill, Jr. remembers going to Melville with his dad to visit Mrs. Israel Geeary as they never forgot what she had done for them and appreciated her kindness.
http://groups.msn.com/melvillehighschool/hillferry.msnw
Hill's grandfather remarried. When he died of tuberculosis in 1911, Hill's father and uncle went to live in Melville. They worked in logging camps and educated themselves. They took and passed the Coast Guard exam for marine engineer and worked boats up and down the Mississippi.
Harold Hill - Port Allen, Louisiana
http://2theadvocate.com/stories/060604/peo_peo001.shtml
Part 1 | Part II
By Harold C. Hill, Jr.
April 2004
It has been 36 years since the Baton Rouge/Port Allen ferry crossed its last load of cars and passengers. Sometimes, when things are really quiet, and you listen closely, you can almost hear the ferry whistles blow. Well, not really, but to those of us who heard them blow thousands of times it is easy to remember how they sounded. When you heard the sound of the whistle you knew the boat was preparing to leave the dock for their trip across the river. Memories, a few artifacts, and a few pictures are about all that is left of this colorful era, and they are fading fast.
In the early days before the steam engine was invented, there was a ferry at Baton Rouge by the name of the “Flying Bridge”. It consisted of a buoy anchored in the middle of the river with a long chain attached to it. On the other end was a barge. They used the current in the river to force the barge from side to side. This was a rather crude type of ferry that was really limited to what it could do.
People had been trying for some time to develop a workable steam engine. It had been known for centuries that there was a lot of power in steam, It just took a long time for knowledge and materials to develop to the point where they could be used.
The first engines were crude and didn’t work very well. Finally, in 1807 Robert Fulton built the first practical steamboat, the “Claremont”.
The knowledge that I acquired about the ferries came from the men who worked on them, especially from my father, Harold C. Hill, Sr. and my uncle, Ralph W. Hill.
My grandfather, Frank Hill, was a steamboat engineer who normally worked on Packet Boats at the latter part of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. In October 1902 he took a job requiring him to go to Plaquemine, LA, and bring a tug, the “Fred Nellis”, back to St. Louis, Missouri. My grandmother, Josie B. Hill, and their five son's age's eight months to thirteen years accompanied him. They made the return trip as far as Memphis, Tennessee without any problems. However, on October 19, 1902, at about 7:30 am, the vessel was just north of Memphis, when the boiler exploded killing the second engineer, injuring my grandmother, and a deckhand who both died later that day. My grandfather’s eight-month-old son, was not injured in the accident, but died a month later of unknown causes. He is buried in the same grave with his mother in Memphis, TN.
My grandfather later remarried. Then in 1911 he died from tuberculosis in a hospital in Dallas, Texas. The two older boys had joined the navy and his wife had no way to support the other children since women did not work outside the home in those days. At the time of my grandfather's death, my father was 13 and my uncle was 15 years old. They went to Melville, LA, where they knew some people. Both found jobs in a logging camp and worked there for some time. My father and uncle were both self educated because it was necessary to leave school at an early age to earn a living. Later they moved to Plaquemine, worked on boats and studied at home to take the Coast Guard exam for their Marine Engineer’s license. Then after obtaining their license, they worked on boats all along the Mississippi River. My father and uncle didn't like being away from home for long periods of time, so they started looking for work closer to home. In 1925 they were working at Angola, Louisiana on a transfer boat that carried trains for the "L. R. & N. Railroad" across the Mississippi River. A job became open for an engineer on the Baton Rouge/Port Allen ferry. My father applied for the job and was hired. The first seven years he worked the night shift, 7 PM to 7AM, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. During that time, there were no holidays, vacations, or days off, but he could be at home whenever he wasn’t working. In 1929 another engineer was needed, and my uncle, Ralph Hill, was hired. He worked the night shift for the next 16 years.
The first ferry lease (franchise) was issued to Mr. C. Hubbs on April 4, 1820 by the board of Baton Rouge. He probably operated a small steam-powered boat although we are not certain.
| Some prices for crossing in 1820 | |
Man on foot 25¢
Man on horseback $1.25
Two wheel carriage-horse and driver $3.00
Four wheel carriage-2 horses & driver $6.00
Cows & horses each 75¢
Sheep & pigs each 12½ ¢ | |
H. B. Favrot obtained a 10-year ferry lease in 1832 for $500 and $25 per year for Baton Rouge and West Baton Rouge parish. In 1840, Mr. Favrot signed another contract that stipulated that a steamboat be used. In all probability he was already using one but they may have wanted to put it in writing.
The owners changed hands many times during the 1850’s and 1860’s. The city of Baton Rouge went into the ferry business in 1865 right after the Civil War. The city only operated the ferry for a few months and decided to award Frederick Arbour and Alfred Delahaye a five-year contract for $2200 on November 4, 1865.
Mr. C.C. Gibbens bought the franchise in 1870 and added a new steamboat “The Irene”. She was built in Memphis, TN for $5,000 and arrived at Baton Rouge in January 1880. It had a single hull and was 90 feet long. The "Irene" could carry 15 wagons and teams. The first boat built especially for the Baton Rouge ferry was the “John J. Brown”. It was built in Jeffersonville, Indiana, and arrived on September 11, 1886. In 1895 the "Istrouma" was the next ferry to arrive. It ran for 20 years, however on September 29, 1915 during a hurricane it broke loose from its moorings and sank just north of where the I10 Bridge is presently located. The "Brookhill" which had its hull crushed by logs, sank at the dock shortly after the "Istrouma. The "Hazel" was brought here to replace the "Istrouma" and was renamed the "Port Allen". I can remember when it sank just north of the ferry landing, probably around 1932 or 1933. ". All three of these boats had wooden hulls. The wooden hulled boats were subject to damage from driftwood, which was plentiful in the river years ago.
The Baton Rouge Transportation Company, which was owned by the Cohn family, bought the franchise in 1916 and operated the ferries until the second bridge opened in 1968.
In 1916 the "City of Baton Rouge" was delivered. Cars and foot passengers rode it for the next 52 years. The "City of Baton Rouge" was built with iron hulls and a wood superstructure. All the boats before this one were built entirely out of wood. A new and larger boat, the "Louisiana" was delivered in 1924. At the time, it was considered the finest ferry on the Mississippi. It was constructed entirely of steel, with tile restrooms, and a snack bar. It was Coast Guard approved to carry more than three hundred passengers and sixty to seventy cars. The "Louisiana" operated between Port Allen and Baton Rouge for 44 years. In the 1930's traffic was increasing rapidly because more people were buying cars and the highway system was expanding.
Another boat was needed so the Baton Rouge Transportation Company bought the "Thomas Pickles", a large boat, about the size of the "Louisiana", from a ferry company in New Orleans. It was built in 1892 and needed an extensive overhaul. The "Pickles" was sent to a shipyard in Slidell, Louisiana where they replaced everything needed, including the hulls. When she arrived in Baton Rouge she was like a new boat, if not better. There were now three ferries operating at the same time, one loading and unloading on each side of the river and one crossing. There was a boat leaving the dock every 15 minutes.
All the ferryboats that operated during my lifetime were steamboats of the center wheel design. Because of the current in the Mississippi River, the boats always had to land headed upstream. In order for the cars to load and unload quickly, the paddle wheel was moved forward more to the center of the vessel. This was accomplished by using two hulls and placing the paddle wheel between them. It was enclosed in a wheelhouse. The deck was extended around the wheelhouse. This provided more parking space and made it easier to load and unload the vehicles. The paddle wheel was another ideal feature of these ferryboats as maintenance could easily be preformed on the wheel because ninety five percent of it was always out of the water.
The boats seldom needed dry-docking. The steam engine also was another low maintenance feature of the ferryboats. They ran slowly but had a lot of power, turning the paddle wheel only about fifteen revolutions per minute. At that speed there was little wear and tear. The engines of the "City of Baton Rouge" were built in 1915 and they are still running today as I am writing this in 2004. These boats ran 24 hours per day, 365 days a year, regardless of the weather. They never had radar or two way radio communication on board. During dense fog, a deckhand would ring a large bell at the landing on each side of the river and the captain would steer the boat to the sound. The boats had to pass each other in the middle of the river, and because of the fog, they couldn't see each other. The captains on each boat would blow the whistle every few minutes so they could tell where the other boat was.
© 2004 Harold C. Hill, Jr.
Part 1 | Part II
