In short, there's not a wealth of archaeological literature on ferry
crossings.

For Dooley's Ferry, it's shaping up to look like there was a small
community surrounding the ferry crossing. We've got a store, warehouse,
church (which probably doubled as a Masonic lodge), and several residences
on the east side of the river, and a number of houses on the other side.
It's not a large settlement, but one whose position along the roads into
Texas caused it to be fortified against a possible U.S. Army movement to
take cotton lands in the Lone Star State at the end of the Civil War. Those
trenches are still quite visible on the landscape. After the war, there
were a succession of stores there that appear in the R.G. Dun & Company
Records at Harvard Business School's Baker Library. It never grew into a
large community, probably because 1) it's out in the Red River valley,
which is great agricultural land and was too valuable for cultivation and
2) it's really, really hot here in the summers, and early settlers found
places like it to be too malarial and unpleasant to inhabit. Nearby upland
communities, such as Washington and Spring Hill, grew much faster.

Ferry landings in general are fascinating and important parts of the
economic network. They often served as ports where cargo would be
transferred to either wagons for overland shipment or smaller watercraft
for ascent of tributaries. Anywhere where road and river met (particularly
in Arkansas, where railroad construction didn't take off until after the
Civil War) became important hubs. Dooley's Ferry was one place where
steamboats from New Orleans would call to pick up passengers and freight.
In addition to the conflict aspect, my research focuses on commodity flows
through the region, of which Dooley's Ferry was an integral part.

It strikes me that most of the construction associated with the ferry is on
the east side of the river, though at this point that's based more on
historic maps than on archaeological data. I know that at times, the single
ferry boat was insufficient to support the influx of goods coming in
overland from Texas, so some kind of depot/storage activity would be
entirely unsurprising. The west side of the Red River at Dooley's Ferry was
an agricultural community (plantations mostly) known as the Lost Prairie
settlement. One of the things I'm looking to establish through this work is
the archaeological resources on the east side of the river. One small
problem, though, is that the first 100 yards up from the riverbed has
clearly been flood-scoured, so probably much of that has been lost.

----
Carl G. Carlson-Drexler, MA
Department of Anthropology
College of William & Mary
[log in to unmask]


On Thu, May 10, 2012 at 8:56 AM, Linda Derry <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Carl,
>
> I've never heard of an archaeological report on ferry crossings.  Are there
> many?  Would love to hear more about your dissertation research.  (my
>  email
> is posted below, if you chose not to answer online).
>
> I'm curious because I am involved in land purchases (& fund raising ) to
> protect an entire antebellum town (town created in 1819)  and need to
> justify why this protection should extend across the river to land that was
> set aside for the ferry crossing.  So,  If, it would be most helpful if I
> could cite some information on what is likely to remain there
> archaeologically and what activities these remains might represent.
> Unfortunately, remains are buried under much silt from flooding, so this
> will not an easy field investigation.
>
> Most of the activities I've picked up from documents represent gun and
> knife
> fights over who gets to use the ferry first!
>
> Was your ferry associated with a town?
>
> Linda Derry
> Site Director
> Old Cahawba
> 719 Tremont St.
> Selma, AL 36701
> ph. 334/875-2529
> fax. 334/877-4253
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Carl
> Carlson-Drexler
> Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2012 8:13 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Introductions
>
> I am Carl Carlson-Drexler, a doctoral candidate at the College of William &
> Mary, the station assistant for the Arkansas Archeological Survey's SAU
> Research Station in Magnolia, and on leave from my position as a project
> archaeologist with the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center's
> Construction Engineering Research Laboratory in Champaign, Illinois. Whew!
> I've been in archaeology for 12 years, working in ten states and three
> foreign countries.
>
> I started out doing prehistoric Southwest archaeology through Grinnell
> College, but got hooked on historical through Doug Scott and Richard Fox's
> work at the Little Bighorn battlefield in Montana. I went to Nebraska for
> my
> MA, where I worked on Pea Ridge and Wilson's Creek battlefields, writing up
> some of the research on the former for my thesis. My first dissertation
> project was going to be San Juan Hill in Cuba, but that encountered some
> paperwork issues, so I'm doing my dissertation on a 19th century ferry
> crossing in southern Arkansas that was integral to the antebellum economic
> networks of the region and was significantly impacted by the Civil War.
>
> ----
> Carl G. Carlson-Drexler, MA
> Department of Anthropology
> College of William & Mary
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
> On Wed, May 9, 2012 at 9:09 PM, Benjamin Carter <
> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > Histarchers,
> >
> > Thanks to Anita, I have learned much about many folks on this list-serve.
> > I thought I ought to repay the favor instead of just lurking.
> >
> > I am Ben Carter. I am a prehistoric(al) archaeologist and a newbie
> > historical archaeologist. I am generally a coastal archaeologist (I
> > gotta have ocean nearby!) My dissertation (Washington University in
> > St. Louis,
> > 2008) was on shell bead working on the Ecuadorian coast from c. AD
> > 800- 1532. Much of that work deals with early historical reports of
> > shell bead making and trading, especially of the famous "Spondylus"
> > (hence my email
> > address) also known as "mullu" or Inca Red Gold. So, my research was
> > always at the edge of PreColumbian/historical archaeology, but in
> > 2008, due to a serious of odd occurrences,  I ended up working on a
> > small structure on the coast of Maine that was occupied between the
> > 1760s and 1811. While my previous projects continue, I am completely
> > enthralled by this particular
> > project- and only partially because we eat lunch sitting on the beach
> > with the mountains of Acadia National Park just across the bay. In
> > general, the project revolves around understanding the "other"
> > pioneers- the ones that went east (Downeast, that is deah... hopefully
> > someone will get my Maine accent). Documentation is sketchy during
> > this time period, so it is a perfect situation for historical
> archaeology.
> >
> > Beyond this, one of my central concerns is the appropriate use of
> > digital resources. As such, I have begun to create what I like to call
> > a digital ecosystem for archaeology. The purpose is to make data
> > collection easier and less prone to error, for students to be able to
> > see the use of data in the field, to integrate field and lab data, and
> > to make this available to the public (with appropriate site location
> > data removed). And, at the same time, increase efficiency and reduce
> > errror.  I am a one-man show- the only archaeologist at a small
> > liberal arts college- Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA. My goal is
> > to provide my students some of the same resources that you generally
> > find only at larger research institutions. I am still in the early
> > stages at this point, but this project is coalescing- due partially to
> > some information that I have gleaned from this listserve (and others).
> > I could provide lots more details but will stop there. If you would like
> to know more, email me off-list.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Ben Carter, PhD, RPA
> > aka spondylus.princeps
> >
> >
> > On 5/7/2012 6:09 PM, Anita Cohen-Williams wrote:
> >
> >> With so many new and old friends signing on to HISTARCH in the last
> >> few weeks, I think introductions are needed. I'll start:
> >>
> >> I am Anita Cohen-Williams, your friendly list owner and bouncer of
> >> Histarch. I have a BA in Anthropology and a Masters in Library
> >> Science. I have been running Histarch since 1994 as a discussion list
> >> on historical archaeology. I also run ArchaeoSeek
> >> (http://www.archaeoseek.com), an archaeological network, SUB-ARCH (a
> >> discussion list for underwater archaeology), and an archaeology blog,
> >> Archaeology Online ( http://archaeology.blogspot.**com
> <http://archaeology.blogspot.com>).
> >>
> >> My main business is search engine optimization (SEO) for websites and
> >> social media management.
> >>
> >> Feel free to ask me any questions, as I am now a cybrarian.
> >>
> >>
>