Last Ferry to Fly: Sistersville has the State’s Only Ferry Across the Ohio River

Text and Photos By Carl E. Feather

The Ohio River town of Sistersville does not have “public transportation,” per se. But it does have the only public ferry service on the 277-mile stretch of the Ohio River along West Virginia’s border. A tradition dating back to the early 19th century, the Sistersville Ferry is rich in lore about the boats and men who piloted them. In the 20th century, Dib Harmon stands out as a legend [see “The Last of its Kind” by Will Daniel, Fall 1990]. For the 21st Century, Herman “Bo” Hausen is a strong candidate.

On a late-September day when a calm Ohio River reflected the cerulean sky, I made several crossings between Fly, Ohio, and Sistersville with Bo and his successor, Tom Meek, in the pilothouse. Bo had spent the summer training Tom, who was handling the 17-ton gross weight ferry and its 63-ton barge like a pro. That gave Bo the freedom to chat with me as he relaxed on the deck in a folding chair. “Tom is doing a good job,” Bo tells me. “When he first started, I was (in the pilothouse) all the time because he was just learning. But now, he’s doing so well, I can just relax. I get bored.”

Among Bo’s reasons for sticking with the seasonal job and the boredom of making the same, five-minute trip over and over, is being part of a story that began with the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia on January 28, 1817. That’s when the ferry franchise was awarded to John McCoy. He, his wife, and his heirs ran McCoy Ferry until 1894 when it was sold to another private owner. Back then, the ferry was powered by a horse on a treadmill. The oil-and-gas boom of the 1890s in Ohio River counties ushered in a new era of prosperity and transportation development that necessitated bridge construction. Eventually, Sistersville was the lone Ohio-West Virginia ferry.

“Some of the ferry’s business comes from former Sistersville natives who include a river crossing as part of a homecoming pilgrimage. The ferry itself is peripheral to their memories. What they remember most are the captains like Gilbert “Dib” Harmon, who owned the ferry from 1964 to 1977.”

Sistersville’s unique survival was formally recognized while the ferry was under Bo’s command. The West Virginia Senate passed a resolution on March 28, 2017, marking the ferry’s 200 years of service and the distinction of being the only operating ferry on the upper 427 miles of the Ohio River. Other bullet points included being the river’s only crossing owned and operated by a West Virginia municipality, and the state’s oldest transportation service still in operation. Its longevity can be partially attributed to Tyler County being the only West Virginia river county without a bridge across the Ohio. Sistersville residents must travel north to New Martinsville or south St. Mary’s to access a bridge. The distance between the two bridge-possessing towns is about 29 miles. The commute mattered more back when many Sistersville residents had to cross the river to work in Ohio mines and industries, particularly the former Ormet Aluminum Plant in Hannibal which was shuttered in 2014. 

Bo says he still gets a few Sistersville residents who take the ferry to their Ohio jobs, like Michael McKinney, chauffeured by Sistersville resident Amy Deen on this Friday afternoon. Michael makes the passage seated inside an SUV while Amy enjoys a the river breeze on deck. She says the gasoline burned by taking one of the bridge routes costs more than the $5 fare for a vehicle and its passengers. But, even with using the ferry, Michael had a 20-minute commute from the dock at Fly.  “A lot of the reason why we take it is to keep (the ferry) going,” she says, a sentiment also expressed by Steve Hadley. He and his wife, Janet, were driving to a popular eatery in New Matamoras and decided to drop $10 for the two ferry crossings rather than use the St. Mary’s bridge.

“I don’t really care about the money,” Steve says. A Sistersville resident, Steve has been using the ferry for decades; he can recall when the vehicle fare was $1.50. At more than three times that, the fiver was still a bargain. “Five bucks in gas, it goes like that,” Steve says, snapping his fingers. As Sistersville residents, Steve and Janet consider it a civic responsibility to keep the ferry tradition alive, even though its scope has been pared back significantly over the decades. “It used to be year-around, and go all night, all three shifts,” he says. “I used to work in the coal mine up the river, and I’d take the ferry boat. I’d work in Ohio and take the ferry boat sometimes, even at midnights.”

In 2024, the ferry service operated from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Thursday through Sunday, from May to September. Bo and the ferry board developed the lean schedule after poring over years of ferry statistics and receipts. “We used to run from April to the end of November. And at the end of the year, we were always in the red, so it wasn’t sustaining itself,” Bo says. “So, we had to figure out what we could do to keep money in the bank, to keep it running and do maintenance, all that. That’s how we came up with Thursday through Sunday, the busiest days of the week.” 

He says tourism and pleasure travel keep the ferry afloat financially. “There’s only a couple of people who work on that side and live here, and vice versa,” Bo tells me. “In the summertime, it is actually a lot of tourism, just for the experience. People from three hours away will drive here just to ride across on the ferry and back.” Bo will run the ferry across the river for just one pedestrian waiting on the other side. He says the vessel will use 25 gallons of fuel a day whether it is idling at the landing or running against the current, so he likes to keep it in service. And driving the ferry is a lot more interesting than just sitting along the shore waiting for the next vehicle, walker, or motorcyclist to show up. 

Some of the ferry’s business comes from former Sistersville natives who include a river crossing as part of a homecoming pilgrimage. The ferry itself is peripheral to their memories. What they remember most are the captains like Gilbert “Dib” Harmon, who owned the ferry from 1964 to 1977. He continued to operate it after the City of Sistersville purchased it and restored operation in 1981. Dib’s colorful stories of dealing with ornery passengers, operating around the clock and calendar, and transporting “baby cases” from Ohio to West Virginia have become part of the ferry’s rich heritage. The barge attached to the City of Sistersville II is named in Harmon’s honor. 

A New Jersey native, Bo adopted West Virginia by way of his wife, Sue, who returned to her hometown of St. Mary’s after Bo retired from his 30-year Coast Guard career.  “I moved to St. Mary’s, which is about a half-hour south of here,” he says. “My wife and I were on a motorcycle ride coming up through Ohio. And my wife says, ‘Let’s take the ferry back across.’ I said, ‘Okay, what ferry?’ I didn’t know there was a ferry here.” Bo’s daughter, who was a reporter for the Sistersville newspaper, told him the captain’s position was open. “So, I got my resume together and a couple of papers, attended a meeting, and I was working the next day,” he says.

Bo came well qualified with an offshore captain’s license, and  says his Coast Guard search-and-rescue training, which involved towing disabled boats alongside the rescue craft, gave him tugboat experience. After one month of training under an experienced captain, Bo had charge of the vessel. 

He says the biggest challenge to learning how to pilot the ferry involved the steering sticks and rudder arrangement. The ferry has two sets of steering sticks—one for steering while moving forward, the other when operating astern propulsion that increases maneuverability. “It’s got steering sticks instead of a steering wheel, and its rudders in front of the propellers and rudders in back of the propellers for more maneuverability,” he says. “That, I wasn’t used to, and I just had to get used to it . . . like everything else, if you train on it, you’ll get it.”

Bo took an interest in the boat’s mechanics as well, delivering extra value to the city. “I just keep the ferry running,” he says. “I try to treat it like it’s my own vessel because, if it breaks, I’ve got to fix it. I’m not a mechanic, but I can read a book, and I work on all my own vehicles and always have since I was a kid. So, I don’t want it to break, otherwise I’ve got to fix it.”

His many roles were noted upon Bo’s retirement. Ferry Board President Gary Bowden, quoted in the Tyler Star News, said that “if the Sistersville Ferry had a heart, it would be Bo Hause…He didn’t just operate the ferry, he treated it like his child. He was its chief mechanic, and would even lower himself into its dark, grimy bilge to check for leaks. In the off-season he would babysit, always checking to make sure it was tied securely and the Ferry’s diesel engines were running properly.” Adding, “The ferry runs the river six months a year, but Captain Bo ran the ferry every single day.”

Bo says that his priority was always the safety of the passengers, crew, and boat whenever he ran. The unique arrangement of the barge running alongside the boat required paying special attention to the river’s mood. “If the river is too rough, we can’t run because the barge will bang up against the boat,” he says. “And it will break the ledge that holds us together when we’re moving slow. High winds going up the river are pretty much the only reason we cannot run unless the river is too high or too low; landing on the Ohio side cannot accommodate (either) river stage.”

One of the most harrowing experiences in his 12-year career was piloting the ferry during a summer flood. “I was dodging hay bales, tires, refrigerators. I mean, the river was really high, and it got to the point where I had to stop running because I couldn’t land on the other side because the river was too high on that side,” he says.  “We’re in a drought now, but if it rains and the river starts coming up or starts flooding. . .it could be a current of five or ten miles an hour,” he adds. “Trying to get across—the current flows north to south—we may be steering straight across, but the current will push us. So, when we’re coming in, we got to go downstream a little bit and turn up into the landing.”

A microburst during the final weeks of his career made for a frightening close to his career. “I saw that the storm was coming because I can see rain on the radar,” he says,  “And I had a couple of passengers on deck. It started pouring all of a sudden—sideways rain, thunder, lightning, and probably 50 to 60-mile-per-hour winds. And I couldn’t see out the windows. So, I had to navigate across using my radar.” That crossing was the rare memorable one. Bo says he’s had days where he made upwards of 90 trips across the river. A smooth crossing that does not require waiting for a barge or other traffic takes just five minutes. It is repetitive work for both Bo and his only crew member, a deckhand, who secures the gates, takes the fare, and holds passengers to the safety rules. Finding deckhands is almost as challenging as hiring a pilot; Bo had more than a half-dozen in his time on the ferry. The work is monotonous and performed in all manner of weather, but the summer heat is the worst. 

Bo says the factors that made for a good day of work were pleasant weather and strong demand. “Having a lot of people come aboard and having a nice day put me in a good mood,” he says. “(Drivers and their passengers) will get out of their cars, talk to each other. People meet each other that way, they’ll make acquaintances while they are going across the river.

“I’ve never met a person I didn’t like,” he continues “Some more than others, sure. I’ve watched families grow. I let the kids come up to the pilothouse when they come on board. This one particular family, (the daughter) was in a car seat, and still remember her sticking her little arm out the window with a five-dollar bill and saying, ‘Here you go!’ And now she is a teenager dating.”

All has not been smiles and good vibes, however. The pay is considerably less than what Bo could have made working for one of the towboat operators on this river. Every summer weekend has been booked for Bo and his wife since took the job. Rainy days are miserably boring. Throughout his service on the ferry, Bo was hounded with back pain resulting from his military assignments. Several years into the captain’s job, he obtained his CDL and tried driving a trash truck instead of piloting. But he discovered that was equally brutal on his back, and Bo returned to the ferry, whose operation had been suspended for lack of a captain. “And people kept asking me to come back because they couldn’t find a replacement pilot,” he says. “It’s hard to find a pilot in this area . . . so, I came back.”

When Bo announced his plan to retire from piloting in 2024, a replacement was literally on deck, where Tom Meek was working as a deckhand. As with Bo, Tom is not a native West Virginian, is a veteran, and was introduced to the ferry by his wife. “We live on the Ohio side back there in the hills, on the inside of that ridge right there,” Tom says pointing to the northwest as he stands on the ferry deck. After Tom and his wife tested several other locations, they settled on relocating close to her parents, which led them to Sardis, Ohio. Tom says. “We just came through here one day, saw there was a ferry, jumped on it, and rode it two, three, four times. And eventually, I came to work on it.”

During Bo’s time on the ferry, the board expanded the ferry’s scope of operation to include evening charter cruises that can be booked through the town’s ferry office. The cruises have ranged from live music venues to historical-themed jaunts. Bo says the ferry is also called upon to do off-season assignments, like one in October 2024.

“There’s an annual old farm tractor parade,” Bo says. “I’m not sure where they start from in Ohio, but they would take the ferry and go up Route 2 on the West Virginia side. It’s a parade of 15 to 20 tractors . . . and a couple of custom-built vehicles. So, when they loaded up, they didn’t just want to go across the river. I took them south to New Matamoras, Ohio, because they wanted to take a ferry ride with all the tractors. So, it took about an hour, we drove down the Ohio River with a barge full of tractors. Then they got off and did a different route for the parade.”

The barge’s 72-foot-long deck can accommodate a tractor-trailer rig, six large pickup trucks, or up to 10 small cars. Bo says that on a typical weekday, the ferry will transport three dozen or so cars during the eight hours of operation. “But last week, on either a Friday or Saturday, I had 81 cars in one day,” he says. 

Bo said he planned to turn his attention to woodworking once the ferry season ended. He would still be on call to assist with mechanical issues and perhaps fill in during emergencies, but like the vessel he commanded, his stint is history. “The ferry is history,” Bo says. “It’s been here for over 200 years. And I like the fact that I’m being a part of history. You know, maybe people will remember me. They’ll talk about me in the days to come and say, ‘Yeah, I remember when Captain Bo let us up in the pilothouse and drive.’”

For current operating times and days of the Sistersville Ferry, check their website at https://sistersvilleferry.org.