Freestone County, Texas
Landmarks


The Ferries of Freestone County, Texas



  Cook's Ferry
 
For travelers coming overland from East Texas, Cook's Ferry offered a cable 
across the Trinity River. Located just upriver from Troy and Tyus Bluff where 
the Trinity River formed another bend, Cook's Ferry was a very early crossing 
point from Anderson County into Freestone County. A nearby body of water was 
known as Cook's Lake. Ernest Newman, who ran the ferry in the 1930s, told his 
children that he ferried the notorious Bonnie and Clyde across the Trinity. 
[FC History vol I, p 516]   

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  Tyler's Ferry  

Tyler's Ferry was located downstream about four miles from where (just upstream 
from where Indian Creek flows into the Trinity River just north of Patterson 
Lake).

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There was a ferry across the river at the former site of Pine Bluff in 1930s.  
Newt Cretsinger, had a home place in the area and was the ferry operator. Newt 
kept the ferry going until about 1940 when he moved to Red Lake and later to 
Butler.  

Mac Alford and his son Monroe, residents of the Butler area, drowned in the 
Trinity River at Pine Bluff in 1942; the ferry was already gone by then.  
Monroe was swimming and got caught in an undertow. His father Mac went into 
the river after his son, but drowned himself.  Both are buried at Antioch 
cemetery.

One of the Newman boys drowned on in river at the ferry.