Malheur County OR Archives History - Letters .....Washoe Ferry 1939
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Patty Theurer seymour784@yahoo.com December 8, 2005, 6:20 pm

Book Title: 

WASHOE FERRY

When gold was first discovered in the Boise Basin in 1862 and hoards of fortune 
seekers poured into that section from all sides, dependable means of crossing 
the rivers became imperative. Very soon the Washoe Ferry was established on the 
Old Oregon Trail, crossing the Snake River a short distance below the mouth of 
the Malheur River, where it served as am important link in transportation for 
over forty years.  

The first reference to this ferry which I have found is in McConnell’s “Early 
History of Idaho” where he says, “A company of volunteers under the leadership 
of Jeff Standifer, during the early months of 1863, crossed the Snake river at 
Washoe Ferry to levy reprisals on a band of Piute Indians, who, having raided 
the lower Boise and Payette Valleys, had returned with their plunder to the 
Malheur Valley.”

The original owners and operators of the ferry were the young Stewart brothers, 
who had come from Canada.  Because of exposure to attack from Indians, the 
isolated ferry-house, located on the Oregon side of the river, was really a 
fort, constructed and equipped to resist assault or withstand a siege, should 
occasion arise.  

But the hostile Indians were not the only danger the early settlers had to 
face.  Lawlessness among the whites was an even greater menace, the sheriff 
himself often being in league with the bandits.  Not until the local Vigilantes 
were organized under the leadership of Col. McConnell, was law and order 
established.  One of the boldest gangs of bandits won the friendship of the 
lonely boys at the ferry and, making the impregnable ferry-house their 
headquarters, issued proclamations of defiance to the Vigilantes.  The account 
of the ruse by which their captures was effected by three men without loss of 
life is a thrilling story well worth reading.  

The bandits were hanged, but though the personal intercession of McConnell, the 
Stewart boys were allowed to escape with their lives.  This was in 1865, and 
once safe in the Powder River section of Oregon, they sold their interest in 
the ferry to William Packard who operated it until 1872 when he sold it to 
William Emerson, who later sold it to George Brinnon.  When the railroad bridge 
was built in 1884, Captain Payne, from Illinois, who bought the ferry from 
Brinnon at that time, moved it six miles up the river to a point just north of 
Ontario, Oregon, where it continued to serve the public until the building of 
the first wagon bridge in 1906 brought its usefulness to an end.  

There were a number of owners after the ferry was moved, among them being Ted 
Butler, Lew Morton, Frank Draper, William Mink, and John Bivens.  The late N. 
A. Jacobsen, pioneer and prominent citizen of Payette, who ran the ferry a 
short time while the owner went away to be married, told of the interest the 
Indians showed in the boat.  Once two of them swam across with a heard of 
horses, then swam back again in order to ride across on the ferry.

Traces of the original location of the ferry can still be seen, according to 
reports, and Dorian Chapter hopes to mark the spot.

Emily K. Thurston
Past Regent Dorian Chapter
February 22, 1939


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