A river that needed crossing
For most of the colonial and early national periods there was no bridge across the lower Delaware. The river near Philadelphia is wide, tidal and busy with shipping, and building a fixed crossing was beyond the engineering and finances of the time. People who wanted to move between Philadelphia and the New Jersey shore went by boat.
The distance across is on the order of a mile at this point, which sounds short. In practice the trip depended on the tide, the wind, the weather and the season, and the same crossing could take very different amounts of time on different days.
How the crossing began
Philadelphia was founded in 1682, and its rapid growth created demand on the opposite bank. A ferry operated from the Cooper family’s land on the New Jersey side from the late seventeenth century, which is why the place was long called Cooper’s Ferry. Ferry rights were valuable. They were typically granted or recognized by colonial authorities, came with regulations on fares and conduct, and could be passed through a family or leased.
Other crossings operated elsewhere along the river, and the New Jersey shore was dotted with landings. Gloucester, a short distance downriver, also had a ferry connection. The Cooper family’s role in controlling the Camden landing is told in a separate account of the family and its holdings.
Boats and crews
Early ferries were small, open craft, rowed or sailed, and carried passengers, baggage and sometimes horses or other animals. Larger flat-bottomed boats could carry wagons and livestock. Ferrymen needed local knowledge of the river’s currents, shoals and tides, a subject that connects to the general question of river navigation on the Delaware.
In the early nineteenth century new kinds of vessels appeared. Some boats were driven by horses working a treadmill-like mechanism, and steam-powered ferries followed. Steam made scheduled, more reliable service possible and increased the volume of traffic. The exact dates for each type of boat on this route differ among sources, so it is safest to say that these changes took place in the first decades of the 1800s.
What crossed the river
The ferry carried more than commuters. Farm produce moved toward Philadelphia’s markets, and the trade between the farms of South Jersey and the city is described in the account of market gardens and early agriculture. Livestock, grain, firewood, dairy goods and finished products went west, while manufactured goods, imported items and news came east. Travelers heading through New Jersey toward New York or the Atlantic coast also used the crossing.
Tolls and fares were set by custom and regulation, but the exact amounts at any given time should be taken only from documented sources. Many early accounts mention fares in shillings and pence or later in cents, and the values differed by passenger, animal and cargo.
Weather, ice and risk
The river brought risk. Winter ice could stop the boats or damage them, and floating ice sometimes made the crossing dangerous. Fog, storms and strong tides caused delays. Accidents did occur, and the ferry business had to accommodate seasonal interruptions. Services that were reliable in summer could be limited in winter, which is one reason the idea of a fixed bridge persisted for generations.
Ferry landings and town form
A landing shapes the land around it. Roads leading inland from the Camden ferry, taverns and inns for waiting travelers, warehouses and wharves clustered near the water. As a result, the early commercial life of the village was concentrated along the riverfront, and the streets laid out in the 1770s were arranged in relation to that landing. This is part of why the city’s earliest streets run the way they do, and why the shore developed as a transportation point before it developed as a manufacturing one.
From ferries to bridges and rails
Ferries remained important well into the twentieth century. The Delaware River Bridge, now known as the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, opened in 1926, and later bridges and rail connections changed how people crossed. The story of the present-day river bridges and of the PATCO Speedline is part of the later history of the region. Ferry service across the Delaware did not disappear at once, but cars and trains gradually took over most of the traffic.
Ferries also left a mark in literature. The poet Walt Whitman, who lived in Camden in his later years, wrote about river crossings and often rode the ferries, and the ferry poems associated with the region are covered in the literary cluster of this site.
Reading about ferries today
Information about specific ferries, operators and dates is scattered across deeds, advertisements, council minutes and local histories. Many of these sources are now available in digital form. Researchers interested in the topic can start with newspaper archives and with the collections of local historical societies, always keeping in mind that early records sometimes disagree about names and years.