This recording has been made possible thanks to a generous grant from the Jeanann Gray Dunlap Foundation.
Henry L. Ferguson Museum – Fishers Island Ferries Over Time (2021)
Directed by Marisela La Grave and Pierce Rafferty
This recorded illustrated talk is a 50-minute documentary that traces the history of ferry transportation to Fishers Island. The story begins with rare outlier visits to the island by excursion steamboats in the 1820s and 1830s and picks up when regularly scheduled trips first started in the late 1870s. The production chronicles the array of passenger and auto ferries that have connected Fishers to the outside world ever since. The ferries are the stars of this show!
Over the years, passengers making the crossing to Fishers Island have relied upon a kaleidoscopic cast of marine vessels of all shapes and sizes, some more sea-worthy than others, but each adding its own colorful contribution to the Island’s history.
Today many of us take the routine crossings aboard the MV Race Point and MV Munnatawket for granted, even in adverse conditions. But ferry passages to and from the mainland were not always so routine. There was a time when you could travel to Fishers aboard the party barge Frolic (dancing encouraged), or on the Steam Yacht Julia, originally owned by the infamous Boss Tweed of Tammany Hall, or on a pair of converted military subchasers, the MV Islander and the MV Ranger.
- MV Ranger leaving West Harbor with two cars on deck, circa 1946. Mansion House Wharf in background. Donated by Peg Campbell.
- SS Block Island at Lyles Beach dock, Fishers Island, circa 1885. Museum Collection. Donated by Diane Dawson Dexter.
- Billhead of the Fishers Island Steamboat Company, Ltd., circa 1888. Museum Collection. Donated by Jim Wall.
- Capital Stock Fishers Island Steamboat Company, Ltd., 1888. Museum Acquisition, 2019.
- SS Restless at Munnatawket Dock, Fishers Island, 1914. Photograph by Quimby. Museum Collection. Donated by Tom and Bunty Armstrong.
- Fishers Island Ferry District Logo, circa 1947. Museum Collection. Donated by the Fishers Island Ferry District.
- MV Race Point in rough seas. November, 1990. Museum Collection. Photograph by Charles Morgan.