WOODLAND FERRY

WOODLAND FERRY

AKA

CANNON'S FERRY

One of the oldest ferries in continuious operation in the United States is in southwest sussex county, Delaware. It has connccted the north and south side of the Nanticoke River since around

1740, when it carried people, carts, wagons, mules or horses across the 500 foot wide river between

Seaford and Laurel. The ferry site is located at a low spot in the Nanticoke and may well have had a

ferry earlier and there is doucmentation that James Cannon had a wharf and ferry operation before he died in 1751, when Jacob Cannon took it over. Jacob died in 1780 and his wife Betty and son Isaacs

kept the ferry operating.

The ferry was just a flat wooden scow which the operated by 'poling' or rowing. Jacob

Cannon and his wife Betty charge 5 cents a person with hourse, two wheel cart was 10 cents,

and four wheel wagons and carriages cost 30 cents. Ddurinh storms, snow and such the ferry service was undependable and people had to wait hours for it to cross.

When Betty died in 1828, Isaacs and Jacob Jr., inherited the Cannon Ferry. Being shrew

businessmen, the brothers became very wealthy. They were the owners of 5000 acres of land, owned warehouses, stores, and houses. They also owned slaves and vessels that traded between Seaford and Baltimore. Their 'loan' business , lending money, extending credit, extracting fines,

confiscating goods and property, ruthless in the collecting of depts, earned them the title of despised

explotive “thugs”.

These brothers were cousins of the Patty Cannon group of slave runners.

The hatred of the Cannons came to an end April 10, 1843, Jacob was at the ferry dock, just returning from to the governor seeking protection from people he had business with and were

threatening him, when he was shot by Owen O'Day with his musket. Owen fled and Jacob stumbled home where the doctor found 27 shot in his chest and he wasgiven a large dose of opiate from which he never awoke. Owen fled to the west and was never prosecuted for the death.

Isaac took sick a month after Jacobs death and died 26 May, 1843. Both are buried in a

church cemetery at the ferry site with their mother.

Their sister, Lurana Boling inherited the Cannons Brothers businesses . The family continued

the operation of the ferry which fell into decline and Sussex County took the operation over and it was then renamed Woodland in 1883. Delaware DOT took the service in 1935, bought a new boat named

the Patty Cannon. It failed the Coast guard standards and replace in 1951 with a $50,000 all steel

boat, equipped with a diesel engine, named the Virginia C ., named for the wife of Dalas Culver, a

highway commissioner. By 1990 the ferry became deterioated and service was undependable.

Delaware spent millions in 2007 on the docks and the current ferry, The Tina Fallon, named

for a long time state representative. She carries six vehcles, run by liscensed Captains and was sbject to operational problems but now crosses the Nanticoke , free, seven days a week, Thursday mornings set aside for maintenance. The Woodland Ferry was placed on the “National Register of Historic

Places” in 1973.

Source: High Tide News, September 2017 – By Sandie Gerken of Dagsboro.