The Old Ferry Boat by the Bridge by James Dawson were stolen years ago, so no one even knows the boat’s name anymore. However, that mystery was solved when some research turned up its long, curious history. She was, or had been, the Hampton Roads, built in 1925. There are several photographs in the Hagley Museum and Library’s collection in Wilmington, DE, that show her under construction, and one photo features her engines when they were brand, spanking new. What a difference 92 years makes. She was built by the shipbuilding firm of Pusey & Jones in Wilm-
It is June 25, 2017. They are finally scrapping the old ferry boat next to the Choptank bridge near Cambridge, MD. It was towed there probably 50 years ago, grounded and used at various times as a restaurant, a martial arts center, a night club and an antiques co-op, but that closed in about 2005, and so she sat there for years like the washed-up rotting carcass of some prehistoric sea creature. Now backhoes are tearing at her guts like starving vultures. The giant steam engine is moldering in a huge mud puddle. All the identification plates
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