Chazy Landing Auto Ferry: Historical Marker
- Alysha Kuhn
- Jun 21
- 2 min read
The first ferry to connect Chazy Landing and Isle La Motte originated with McDonough
McGregor who bought a house near where the historical marker stands today. McGregor built a flat-bottomed scow with a sail and sweeps in 1852 and operated it for eight years. This ferry changed owners over the following decades, and had several uses, not only for carrying passengers to and from Vermont. "Mrs. Nelson Fisk and other ladies had their rugs washed by tying them with ropes to the ferry and letting them be towed across the lake several times." From the very beginning, the Ferry served the community in a variety of ways.
In 1905 William Sweet purchased the dock and ferry and decided to create a more reliable means of travel. Rather than having to worry about whether or not the wind and weather would cooperate in order to carry passengers, Sweet decided to build his own motorized ferry. So, that's exactly what he did. William Sweet designed and built a 60 ft by 14 ft gasoline-powered vessel with a 4 ft deep hold. It was powered by two double cylinder gas engines, developing 12 horsepower. He named this vessel The Twins after his sons, Gerald and Clinton who were one year old at the time. The Twins was the first motorized ferryboat on Lake Champlain and was so innovative that it gained national attention. Ferrymen from as far as the Mississippi used the vessel as a prototype due to the four lee boards on the boat. One inspector noted that the lee boards made it so whenever the boat
landed, "She's like a cow with four legs stuck in the mud - you can't move her."
In 1916 The Twins was replaced by a more powerful vessel, Twin Boys which could hold fifteen cars at a time. This vessel ran until 1937 due to the building of a bridge in Rouses Point. So, Sweet sold the vessel to a company on the Saco River in Maine.
Before the vessel retired though, it was quite popular with its busiest day being 431 cars crossing in one day on the Sunday before Labor Day in 1929. The ferries even carried several celebrities including Thomas Edison, Henry Firestone, Henry Ford, Eleanor Roosevelt (both when her husband was governor of New York and President of the United States), and Theodore Roosevelt.
Sweet's Ferry had a significant impact on the Chazy community, "Many people in the United States know Chazy only because they crossed on the ferry here." In order to commemorate Sweet's Ferry, the Chazy Friends of the Chazy Public Library erected a historical marker at a dedication ceremony on July 18th, 2009. David & Barbara Sweet and Maggie Sweet Dodds were all credited at the ceremony for initiating the idea of erecting the historical marker.
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