Pentwater Cable Ferry

1858 - 1925

From 1858 to 1859, Charles Mears dug a channel between Lake Michigan and Pentwater Lake to develop a deep-water harbor to transport lumber and other goods. The south side of Pentwater Lake had sawmills, including the Eldred Shingle Mill, the largest in the state. Also, on the south side, a colony of French-speaking fishermen built a school and a cluster of family homes, now cottages, on a small bay. The approximately 10-mile distance around the lake made a cross-lake ferry service inevitable. Before 1858, a sailboat owner, George Flood, carried passengers across the lake from a slip on Third Street, mostly millworkers, going to the Eldred Shingle Mill. Around 1858, Flood built a ferry using a scow and a cable to pull it across the lake. When it broke, he relocated the ferry on the channel. The new railroad spur in 1872 meant increased numbers of people and freight crossing the channel, and summer cottage owners used the ferry to reach the village to visit friends or buy goods. 

The ferry ran on a heavy wire cable stretched across the channel from shore to shore. The ferryman would pull the scow across the channel with a large notched wooden maul or mallet slotted to fit the cable. The operator would stand on the ferry deck and hitch the boat along by setting the maul, sometimes described as a hickory stick in the perforated grooves of the cable, and pulling. He would then walk the length of the scow to move. Often the passengers would help, and apparently, youngsters sometimes crossed the channel hand over hand on the ferry cable with their feet dragging in the water below. To allow boats to pass, the ferry operator would loosen the cable and let it drop below the water.  

A horse and wagon called a "bus and transfer" service met the ferry, transporting passengers and freight. Civil War veteran and Bass Lake sawmill operator Martin Perkins drove the bus with his horse Dock. In 1901, Perkins' son-in-law William Webb took over the business. His rig was a high yellow "bus" with a team of chestnut horses. Even when channel waves rocked the ferry, the livery service carried on. Eventually, the ferry conveyed automobiles across the channel but could only carry four at a time. That meant traffic backed up on both sides waiting to cross. 

When it was replaced in 1925 by a steel railroad swing bridge, newspapers called the ferry picturesque and the last-hand ferry in Michigan, although the Saugatuck hand ferry continued. The Ludington Daily News claimed the scow, once used for the ferry, was purchased by the Ludington water department for "repairing intake pipes out in Lake Michigan and later sunk to the bottom of Pere Marquette Lake near the Washington Avenue Bridge."

“Captain Perkins Dies at Pentwater,” Kalamazoo Gazette 8/27/1915. “Crossing the Channel” by Caleb Jackson Contributing Writer, Oceana’s Herald Journal Aug 2, 2021. “Last Hand Ferry to Pass,” Kalamazoo Gazette11/24/1925. “Pentwater Hand Ferry Gives Way to Bridge,” Kalamazoo Gazette 9/20/2020. “The Pentwater Spring Bridge,” Pentwater Historical Society Newsletter Fall 2010.” “Pentwater Pioneer Married 59 Years,” Ludington Daily News 3/11/1935. “Reminiscences of Pentwater” by Leonore P. Williams, Ludington Daily News 6/12/1947 and 10/14/1947.