Mason Island Ferry

Remains of the ferry landing on the northern side of the island.

NPS

Although Theodore Roosevelt Island was purchased by the Mason family in 1717, the family did not use it until they opened the Mason ferry in 1748.[1] The ferry became a mainstay of the island and stayed in operation for over 100 years until 1867. The ferry was operated by a pull chain that connected the island to Georgetown, carrying passengers across the Potomac River. Over this period, the armies of Rochambeau and Lafayette used the ferry on their way to the Battle of Yorktown in 1781. Even George Washington used it for travel and wrote about his journey over the river on the Mason ferry in 1785.[2] One of the most notable uses though was when James Madison fled the destruction of Washington, DC by the British in 1814 during the War of 1812.

 

Hidden History

The island was unused from 1717 until 1748 according to legal documents and written records. But could there be undocumented use of the island during this time? Archeology can help answer these kinds of questions. Any materials left on the island from this time like pottery, tools, or buildings could provide evidence of human use of the island, shedding more light on the history of the island than the written historical record can tell us. So far there is some evidence of this island being used from this time period but not enough to suggest people were living there.

 

George Shoemaker Inspecting Flour for the Port of Georgetown, James Alexander Simpson 1840.

JM&T, 2018

Several paintings and maps from the early 1800s show a ferry house located on the northeastern part of the island. This ferry house would most likely have been used by the operator of the ferry, ensuring travel between the island and Georgetown flowed smoothly throughout the year. Archeological evidence of this ferry house however is limited. The only definitive physical evidence of a ferry on the island are wooden planks indicating a ferry landing on the banks of the northern side of the island. In addition to this ferry landing, there is also evidence of stone piles and a terrace wall near the old location of the ferry house. These features are visible in a painting from 1840 that shows the ferry house as seen from the banks of the Potomac River in Georgetown. The ferry would cease operations shortly after the Civil War following the construction of more bridges spanning the Potomac River that put ferry services out of business. Due to the longevity of the Mason ferry and its use by presidents throughout its history, the ferry remains a lasting legacy of Theodore Roosevelt Island.

 

Sources:

1. John Bedell, Tiffany Raszick, and Gregory Katz, Analostan: The Archeology of Theodore Roosevelt Island. Volume 1 (Washington DC: WSP USA Inc., 2020).

2. Pliska, Jonathan, Historic American Landscapes Survey, DC-12, Theodore Roosevelt Island, Photographs, Written Historical and Descriptive Data, Reduced Copies of Measured Drawings, Field Records (Washington, D.C.: Heritage Documentation Programs, National Park Service, United States Department of the Interior, 2008), 6.