⛵ A Fictional Historical Interview with Samuel Welles, Ferry Operator
Travel in Time with Dan | The Rocky Hill–Glastonbury Ferry, Rocky Hill, Connecticut
⚠️ Author’s Note: The following is a fictional historical interview. The Rocky Hill–Glastonbury Ferry is real and is the oldest continuously operating ferry in the United States, established in 1655. Samuel Welles is a fictional character created to represent the spirit and experience of the early ferry operators who kept this vital crossing running in colonial Connecticut. The historical facts about the ferry and the Connecticut River are real. The dialogue is creative fiction, inspired by life in 17th-century New England.
📍 Setting: The Banks of the Connecticut River, Rocky Hill, Connecticut — 1675
The morning mist is still hanging low over the Connecticut River when I make my way down to the water’s edge. The air smells of damp wood and river grass. Tied to a rough wooden dock is a flat, sturdy raft — simple, functional, and built to last. A broad-shouldered man in a weathered coat and heavy boots is checking the ropes with the practiced ease of someone who has done it ten thousand times. He looks up as I approach, squinting through the mist with sharp, curious eyes.
Dan: Good morning. You must be Samuel Welles. Thank you for taking a few minutes before the crossing.
Samuel: (straightening up and wiping his hands on his coat) Aye, that’s me. Though I’ll warn you, the river waits for no man, and neither do I. If a traveler shows up at that bank needing to cross, we talk while I work. That agreeable to you?
Dan: Perfectly agreeable. Tell me, Samuel, how long have you been running this ferry?
Samuel: Going on twelve years now. My father worked this crossing before me, and his father’s neighbor operated it before that, going back to 1655. This stretch of the Connecticut River has been carrying people back and forth longer than most of the towns around here have had proper names. Back when we started, this was all just Wethersfield.
Dan: 1655. That is an extraordinary piece of history. What made someone look at this river and decide we need a crossing right here?
Samuel: (gesturing broadly at the water) Need. Pure and simple need. You have to understand what this river means to people out here. It is everything. It is the road, the marketplace, the lifeline. Everything that matters moves along or across this water… people, grain, livestock, news, goods from the coast. Without a crossing, you have two communities staring at each other from opposite banks with no way to reach one another. That’s no way to build a civilization.
Dan: So the ferry was about connection from the very beginning.
Samuel: Always has been. Always will be. A man on that side of the river (points east) needs to reach a man on this side. A woman needs to bring her goods to market. A farmer needs his supplies. The ferry isn’t just a boat. It’s a promise that you won’t be cut off from your neighbors just because God put a river between you.
Dan: Walk me through how the crossing actually works. What does a typical day look like for you?
Samuel: (moving to adjust the raft’s mooring rope as he talks) I’m here before first light most days. The river has moods. You learn them the way you learn a person’s temperament. Some mornings she’s calm and cooperative. Other mornings, the current is running hard, and the wind is pushing against you, and every yard across feels like an argument.
We load the travelers and their goods onto the raft — people, horses, carts when we can manage it. Then we take up the poles, and we push off the bottom. The river is shallow enough in places to pole across, but you have to know where the bottom holds firm and where it drops away. Get it wrong, and you’re swimming.
Dan: It sounds like it requires a great deal of skill and knowledge that isn’t obvious to the people riding across.
Samuel: (nodding with a slight smile) That’s the nature of it. The passengers step on, cross their arms, and watch the far bank get closer. They don’t see the work underneath. They don’t feel the current trying to push the raft downstream, or notice me reading the water ahead for snags and shallows. They just arrive on the other side and carry on with their day.
I don’t say that bitterly. That’s what the crossing is supposed to feel like. If they’re worried and frightened, I haven’t done my job well enough.
Dan: That’s a remarkable leadership insight right there… Doing your job so well that others don’t see the difficulty behind it.
Samuel: (pausing, considering this) I hadn’t thought to call it leadership. I’m a ferry operator. But yes, I suppose that’s the truth of it. The people who keep things running smoothly are often invisible precisely because they’re doing it right. The moment something goes wrong, everyone suddenly notices you exist.
Dan: What are the most challenging conditions you face out here?
Samuel: Spring is the hardest. When the snow melts up north, this river swells and quickens. The current turns angry. I’ve had crossings in April where I wasn’t entirely certain we’d make the far bank without being carried half a mile downstream. You have to judge whether the crossing is safe or whether you make the travelers wait.
And that judgment… telling a man who’s in a hurry, who has business to conduct, who does not want to hear it, that he must wait… that is its own kind of difficulty. People don’t always like to be told that the river has the final say.
Dan: How do you handle that?
Samuel: Firmly and without apology. (simply) I’ve been on this river long enough to know what she’ll do. A traveler may be annoyed with me for an hour. A traveler at the bottom of the Connecticut River has considerably larger problems. I’d rather have their irritation than their funeral on my conscience.
Dan: Samuel, what kind of people cross on this ferry? Who depends on you?
Samuel: (leaning against a post, warming to the question) Everyone. That’s the honest answer. Farmers with grain. Merchants with goods. Ministers traveling to tend to a distant congregation. Families relocating to new land. Soldiers moving through. The wealthy and the poor stand on this raft side by side because the river doesn’t care about the difference, and neither do I. You pay the fare, you get across.
There’s something equalizing about a ferry crossing. You’re all just passengers together, at the mercy of the same current, heading for the same bank. I’ve seen proud men grip the rail when the raft rocks and look relieved when we arrive safely, same as everyone else.
Dan: That’s a beautiful observation. The river as a great equalizer.
Samuel: The river doesn’t flatter anyone. That’s one of the things I respect about it.
Dan: Let me ask you something bigger, Samuel. You operate a raft with poles on a river in Connecticut. But what you’re actually doing is connecting communities, keeping commerce moving, keeping people from being isolated, which feels much larger than just a boat ride.
Samuel: (quiet for a moment, looking out at the water)
When I was young and first learning this work, my father told me something I’ve never forgotten. He said, “Samuel, anybody can pole a raft across a river. What you’re doing is something different. You’re keeping people from giving up on each other.”
When communities can’t reach one another, they stop trying. They become strangers. They become suspicious. They forget that the people on the other bank have the same worries, the same hopes, the same need for a good harvest and a warm fire. The ferry reminds them every single day that the other side is reachable. That connection is possible. That they are not alone.
That’s not a small thing. That’s maybe the whole thing.
Dan: I think that might be the finest description of why connection matters that I’ve ever heard.
Samuel: (smiling modestly) My father was a wise man. I’m just repeating him.
Dan: Looking ahead… and I know this may be difficult to imagine, but do you think there will ever be a day when this ferry isn’t needed? When a bridge replaces it, or roads make it unnecessary?
Samuel: (tilting his head thoughtfully) Perhaps someday. I imagine men will always be building things to cross rivers faster and more easily. That’s the nature of progress. But I’ll tell you this — you can build a bridge, and people will use it. But there will always be those who want to feel the crossing. Who want to stand on the water, even briefly, and understand what it took to get from one side to the other.
The bridge gets you there. The ferry reminds you of the journey.
Dan: Samuel, one last question. Hundreds of years from now, and I know this sounds fanciful, what if this ferry were still running? What would you want the people riding it to know about you and the men and women who kept it going all those years?
Samuel: (standing straight, looking out across the river with quiet certainty)
I’d want them to know that someone always showed up. Every morning, no matter the weather, no matter the season, no matter how cold or high the water ran… someone was here. Because the people on both banks were counting on it.
That’s all leadership really is, isn’t it? Showing up. Being the reliable crossing when the world feels uncertain. Making sure that when someone needs to reach the other side, you’re there to take them.
(He picks up his pole and looks back at me with a grin)
Now then, you coming across or not? I’ve got travelers waiting.
I stepped onto the raft without another word. The pole hit the river bottom with a dull thud, the current tugged gently at the sides, and we moved. Slowly, quietly, steadily across the Connecticut River… the same crossing that had been happening on this same stretch of water since 1655.
Standing there in the middle of the river, halfway between both banks, I thought about what Samuel said. The bridge gets you there. The ferry reminds you of the journey.
Nearly four hundred years later, the Rocky Hill–Glastonbury Ferry is still running. Someone is still showing up.
Some promises, it turns out, are worth keeping forever. ⛵
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