Washington Crossed Here

Washington Crossed Here. Mount Hope Bridge. , For centuries travelers have come here, where the waters narrow between Mount Hope Bay and Narragansett Bay, to come over to Aquidneck Island. Before 1929, the trip was made by water. The Wampanoag people, who were the earliest residents of Mount Hope Neck, made the crossing in dugout canoes, a practice that Roger Williams and the first Europeans adapted. , As Colonial settlement grew, a regular ferry was established between Portsmouth and Bristol. The early ferryboats were oar-boats and sloops, powered by sail. In 1826, a horse ferry was added, which used four horses walking on rotating platforms to operate a pair of ride paddle-wheels. The riverboat eventually replaced the horse ferry in the 1840s. At that time the ferry landing in Bristol moved north to downtown Bristol, but it returned to the old location by the 1920s as the commuting link in a bus route to Newport. The Bristol ferry continued to operate until October 1929, when the opening of the Mount Hope Bridge marked the end of over two hundred years of service. , Over the years the Bristol ferry carried many notable people. During the American Revolution they included Generals Washington, Lafayette and Rochambeau, as well as John Sullivan, commander of the American army in the Battle of Rhode Island. The horse ferry could transport carriages and stagecoaches in addition to people and according to tradition it once carried an entire circus, with the elephants swimming around the ferry.