Today, if one needs to get to the other side of the Connecticut River, there are many ways to cross. But for much of Lunenburg’s history, if you wanted to cross the river to Dalton or back, you didn’t drive up to Mt. Orne or down to Gilman. You took the Dalton ferry. 

          The ferry later became know as “the Cook ferry,” and was run by a Mr. Cook for an extended period during the mid-1800s. Myron Chandler lived in the brick house on what is now the Birt farm, just upriver from the ferry landing, during this period. His diary entry for Friday, April 9, 1858 notes, Jas (James) and O(rrin) helped Cook put in Boat wire PM”, indicating the ferry was just then gearing up for a new season following spring ice-out. On July 1, he reports, “Jas worked on Cook’s Boat.”     
          Whitefield Elementary students interviewed a Mr. Aldrich of Dalton for their 1975 publication, the Log Skidder. “I rode on the ferry ever since I was a little baby,” he is quoted as saying, “because there was a store over there and my mother’s parents lived in Lunenburg. He had animals and they had to have grain.” He remembered that it cost a nickel for one person, a dime for a single team of horses, and a quarter for a double team. 
          Aldrich went on to describe the operation of the ferry, which was guided by two wires or cables strung across the river. “When you want the ferry to go right you tighten up the left rope. This makes the ferry tip slightly and the current will push the boat across.” He recalled that the ferry was about 25 or 30 feet long by 18 feet wide, with three-inch planks for decking.
          The ferry is believed to have run continuously from its inception right up into the late 1920s or early 30s, except for one 13-year stretch in the 1800s when it was discontinued in favor of a toll bridge on the site of today’s railroad span. The toll bridge, which was built and operated by the owner of the nearby Sumner House hotel in Dalton, was eventually “carried off” by ice and logs, and the ferry was back in business.

          Ownership of the ferry turned over frequently for much of its history, leading one to wonder just how profitable an enterprise it was. For example, during the period from 1886 to 1916, a mere 30 years, ownership changed twelve times and was never continuously in the same hands for more than five years at a stretch. The sale price was $500 on October 7, 1886, when William R. Bell sold to Jesse Clement, and had barely increased to $650 by 1900. This had escalated by 1916, when Walter Colby sold the operation to Almon B. Smith of Concord, Vermont “for and in consideration of the sum of sixteen hundred dollars.”
           Al Smith and his daughter were the last to run the ferry before it was rendered obsolete by installation of the Gilman bridge. Harriet Fisher, in her article for Northern New Hampshire Magazine, reports that Gladys Nourse, then of Bethlehem, had written her in 1965 referring to “my father’s ferry.” Mrs. Nourse said that, after her father’s death, she “ran it until the Gilman bridge was put in. I still own the rights along the river.” In another letter to Fisher, she said her name had been Spaulding when she was at the ferry.
          The old Ferry House in South Lunenburg is today owned by Andrew Kachmarik, of Guildhall*, and the property surrounding the Dalton landing by Dennis and Sharon Wogaman of Littleton. To this day, the deed for the Dalton landing contains language “[E]xcepting, saving and reserving the right-of-way as heretofore used in connection with the old Blake ferry, so-called.”

[*2024 update: the Old Ferry House in South Lunenburg is today owned by Jason and Mollie Kleber]