Topics

1. erik stoneham says:

   April 10, 2013 at 8:26 am

   please express to the person that emailed this to you I enjoyed this article.

   Great read and FIND!

2. Chris Brandt says:

   April 10, 2013 at 8:31 am

   Great story! I was completely unaware of this. I would be curious to know if there are any Rochesterians who got the chance to ride the Ontario Car Ferry and the Fast Ferry, and what their opinions might be on the later attempt to recreate this wonderful amenity.

3. Ben Martin says:

   April 10, 2013 at 9:50 am

   The vehicles all look to be 1930s or early 40s in vintage, and steam passenger service generally was phased out by the early 50s, so I would say you’re likely looking at the 40s for this photo.

4. erik stoneham says:

   April 10, 2013 at 11:05 am

   I agree it would be very interesting to get someone’s opinion or perspective on both ferry services. how cool would that be.

   I am surprised I never heard of this before during all the ferry service discussions and media hooop-la a few years back.

5. Jimmy says:

   April 10, 2013 at 11:47 am

   Based on the cars, it looks like it must be the summer of 1941 or 1942. Some of those sedans I think are mid to late 1930s. The trucks look a little newer though

6. chase tyler says:

   April 10, 2013 at 8:36 pm

   There is a display at the Charlotte lighthouse about the ferries. Attendence is low, when I visited there was only one other family there.

7. Justaguy says:

   April 11, 2013 at 7:06 pm

   I, by shear chance, took the Fast Ferry about 3 days before it was officially shut down. I decided to ride my motorcycle around the lake (via the 1000 Island’s Bridge) and by the time I arrived in Toronto the cost of the ferry sounded better than another 4 hours on the bike. It cost $62 dollars for myself and my bike to cross. $62. One way.

   I also spent about 6-8 hours around 1999-2000 with about 20 other Rochester firefighters extinguishing the last remnants of the old coal car loading ‘bridge/trestle’ at Turning Point Park. Someone decided that a hot summer afternoon would be a great time to get all of the old creosote covered heavy timber going and we spent from 4pm til well into the night trying to wrestle hoses in knee deep mud while the local Coast Guard vessel stood offshore unable to assist because their supervisors in CG Station Buffalo would not allow them to be ‘out of service’ (required while pumping with their onboard fire pump. That is one of the reasons why the RFD has repeatedly asked for a fireboat of any kind and it has been shot down repeatedly….).

   My grandfather worked for the NY Central Railroad out of Charlotte from the 40’s to 1975 and while seeing things like the removal of the Hojack Bridge and Seneca Park Zoo rails (where he derailed a train as conductor!) removed makes me sad, I was in no way upset that those old timbers were finally gone.

8. John Zicari says:

   April 12, 2013 at 8:58 pm

   I remember my mother talking about having taken this ferry back in the thirties. If I remember correctly she said it was for a senior trip in high school.

9. June Codding says:

   April 30, 2013 at 9:28 pm

   I took trips on the ferries many times. It would leave the Rochester dock about 8:30 AM return about 8:30PM the same day from Cobourg.Our grammer school class made annual trip. We used to do the Virginia Reel (a type of square dance) on the forward deck every year. We would wander around Cobourg for the time it was docked unloading the coal cars. It also carried personal vehicles. In later years when we had a cruiser docked on the river everyone would wave as the ship went by. In the late 1950’s we were camped on the Welland Canal in Canada and saw the remains of one of the hulls tied up along the shore. Lote of happy memories!

10. RochesterSubway.com says:

    May 16, 2013 at 5:30 pm

    I received some comments from Ted Rafuse about the Cobourg ferry via email. Ted lives in Cobourg, Ontario and self published a 96 page book on the topic of the car ferries entitled “Coal to Canada: A History of the Ontario Car Ferry Company.” Here is our email exchange…

    From Ted:

    Fabulous site! Thoroughly enjoyed viewing the images and studying the detail therein.

    I would particularly like to know more about the images taken on board with many people captured on the film. Was this a special excursion? It seems likely so with so many people on board. Do you have any idea as to the date the images were taken?

    The aerial photograph of one of the Ontario’s breaking the ice at Charlotte is also intriguing. My guess it was taken about 1928, but can you provide any further information regarding the date and circumstance of the photograph?

    The image depicting awaiting passengers on the wooden raised platform was taken in Cobourg, likely in 1912. In the background to the right is the clock tower of the Municipal Hall. To the left the long brick wall contained the local jail erected in 1906. Both buildings still stand and are in operation: City Hall still uses the 1860 structure while the jail is now a restaurant.

    The car ferries carried passengers in the ‘off’ season. One took a chance however as they did not then operate on a schedule so departure and arrival time could be any time. May Canadian’s went south to Rochester to shop and visit relatives there and in other communities by using the ferries.

    In the year 2000 following research and writing, I self published a 96 page book on the topic of the car ferries entitled “Coal to Canada: A History of the Ontario Car Ferry Company.” In addition to the history of the company the book contains 105 b&w captioned images, several diagrams, 3 maps and a full citation of references. Unfortunately for current visitors to the site, the book is out of print and I do not foresee it being reprinted at any time soon. The central Rochester Public Library and the Charlotte Genesee Lighthouse Historical Society held copies of the book although I do not know if they are still in circulation.

    Congratulations on this fine effort in reviving an interesting aspect of international travel from decades ago!

    From RocSubway:

    Hi Ted,
    Thanks for reading the blog and for the wonderful compliments. You can click on any of the images in the post and they will open, larger and with a caption. The dates you guessed were correct according to the captions. The photo of all the people on the boat deck was a “group of city clerks and their families on board the ferry Ontario I during the Rochester Common Council outing at Coburg. August 4, 1912. [PHOTO: Albert R. Stone]”

    If there’s any more information you’d like to share that I didn’t cover, feel free to leave a comment under the article.

    Thanks again!

    From Ted:

    Thanks for the advice on accessing further information on the images. If I recollect from my research Albert R. Stone was a long serving photographer of one of Rochester’s daily newspapers. I accessed some of his collection of images at the Rochester Museum and Science Centre. I did not see some of the photos you have on the web page, particularly the aerial photo which I think is stupendous.

    I apologize for sending the e-mail this way rather than from the web page. I am not a computer guru as I use the computer primarily for e-mails and as a glorified typewriter. I use g-mail as my internet access but if I use imbedded e-mail response forms such as on your web site it wants to use a microsoft internet access which I have never used. Hence the indirect way I am using here.

    A woman, many years deceased now who helped me immeasurably in my research in Rochester and Charlotte was Lillian Roemer. She had travelled aboard the boats and wrote a cirlux bound booklet of 73 pages including photos and titled Remembering the Ontario No.1 and the Ontario No.2. Her book was printed in 1995 and is a completely different treatment of the topic than is my book. Hers is a reminiscence of the boats while mine is more a history of the company. I tried for the most part to avoid using any images she used in her monograph. In addition to the Stone collection the Charlotte Genesee Historical Society also has a large collection of images of the two vessels. Incidentally I was fortunate to be able to acquire a copy of her book but it took several years of diligent searching to obtain it.

    I made several trips to Rochester in the years 2000-2001 to speak to various interested groups concerning the ferries. Ironically I never was on board the boats and never saw them in Cobourg. My family did not move to Cobourg until 1956. My interest in the vessels stems from my hobby of model railroading and I wanted to learn more about the rail marine connection that once operated. One thing led to another and my book was the result of that interest.

    Feel free to copy either this e-mail or my previous one if you wish to add it to your web page. Perhaps it will elicit additional comments.
11. June Codding says:

    May 29, 2013 at 9:23 pm

    There is a book possibly still in print for sale at the Charlotte-Genesee Lighthouse on the history of the car ferries with many photos written by Lillian Roemer called “Remembering the Ontario N0. 1 and the Ontario N0.2.” She has passed away. Check with the lighthouse, her son may have some copies too.

12. Mike Shea says:

    October 16, 2013 at 1:09 am

    I picked up a copy of “Remembering the Ontario No. 1 and the Ontario No. 2” at the New York Museum of Transportation in Rush last Sunday. There were still a couple left on the shelf.

13. Mary Schneider says:

    April 2, 2014 at 2:02 pm

    My 93 year old mom was just telling me about this ferry last night. I had never heard of it before. She said they would go shopping and have lunch in Corbourg and then dance on deck all the way home!

14. George Muller says:

    August 17, 2014 at 2:16 pm

    Sometime ago I obtained a large framed picture of either Ferry #1 or #2
    I am looking obtain history of the Ferry and where this picture came from ? I looks like it was either part of a wall on Ferry or maybe in the terminal where the Ferry docked. Need inside pictures to located where it was displayed

15. Betty Heyer says:

    September 21, 2014 at 12:18 am

    Wow, a trip down memory lane. Although we never took a vehicle on the the Coburg boat, My mom took us every summer to Canada. When we docked at Coberg young boys would dive in the water after coins thrown from the ship. We would go into town, perhaps no more than an hour for a soft drink or ice cream. The trip was great We would return evening.
    My last trip was as a some time after I was 18, when we met some young Canadian sailors who walked us home. Would you believe through a cemetery. We later visited them in Toronto. They took us to visit some castle.
    Really nice decent young men. Looking back I am wondering what happened to them, and why we did not continue our friendship.
    In todays world I must wonder would the outcome have been the same.?

16. John Lyons says:

    February 27, 2015 at 4:50 pm

    My late father, Jack, and uncle Willis Lyons, both served aboard the Ontario Car Ferry #2, as crewmen, during WW II. I bought a copy of the Ted Rafuse book, when it came out. I contacted him to see it he had found any mentioning of them during his research, but he hadn’t. I had not heard of the other book, by Lillian Roehmer. We have a family photo of my uncle posing on the deck of #2. He took ill while serving on board, in 1945, and died 3 days later. My father had to drive to Cobourg to retreive my uncle’s remains and bring him home. We still have his crewman’s cap as a family heirloom. There was a very interersting article in the Winter 2008/2009 issue of the Cobourg area magazine ‘Watershed’ about the winter of 1933-34, when Lake Ontario completely froze over and the OCF#2 became trapped in the ice, for 3 days. The Car Ferry’s ‘excursion trips’ also brought it into Picton (Ont.) Harbour, my home town, on a number of occasions, right up until 1950. The Harbour is so narrow that the ship had to pull straight in to the dock and then reverse all the way straight back out of the Harbour, for quite some distance, before it could turn around and proceed either up or down the Bay Of Quinte. I have seen a few grainy photos but it must have been quite a sight! I’ve never seen the photos on this site before, only the ones in the Ted Rafuse book. Fascinating to see where my father and uncle worked, played and spent part of their lives, some 70 years ago.

17. John Lyons says:

    February 27, 2015 at 4:51 pm

    Please notify me of follow-up comments via email.

18. Ted Rafuse says:

    February 28, 2016 at 6:55 pm

    In a post by George Muller, he wonders about a large image of one of the ferries. I suspect t t such a large picture originally hung in the public area of the BR&P/B&O station as an advertising incentive to take the train/ferry. There was no similar facility other than CN/CP in Cobourg and they would be more apt to display images of the Canadian Rockies with their trains wending through the passes than the image mentioned.

19. Richard Long says:

    May 17, 2016 at 2:45 am

    BR&P along with the Ferries along with much of the coal they carried were largely owned and controlled by a gent named Yates.

    He resided in the city and built a Summer house down by the coal docks. Since he didn’t particularly care for the noise and dust his coal business produced there he bought several farms beginning at Latta and Greenleaf,and built himself another Summer place at 710 Latta Rd. That mansion and the farms were held in his son’s name, although the son lived in Buffalo and ran company operations there.

20. Pamela Redfearn Turnbull says:

    November 22, 2016 at 9:10 pm

    My Grandfather Captain Charles Redfearn was captain of the Ontario and lived in Colburg. His sister, Lillian, ran a coal yard there during 20’s -40’s. There were articles in the Rochester newspaper documenting the ferry trapped during that ice jam. My father, Victor Redfearn often told stories about his Dad’s career on Lake Ontario including his summer days as a cabin boy on ships including the Kingston. I have a lovely original portrait of the Kingston and other of my Grandfather’s momentos. He passed away shortly before I was born in 1951 but my Dad’s stories made it seem like I had met him! Although our family moved from Rochester in 1958 I look forward to visiting and to Colburg! I appreciate comments that can direct me to more information and destinations regarding my family history!

21. Barb Hall says:

    July 22, 2017 at 10:05 pm

    My deceased parents’ took this ferry on 4 August 1940. I have a photo of the two of them on the deck. That was a Sunday. I remember my older relatives in Rochester mentioning that this was a popular thing to do.

22. Mary P Reardon Voelkl says:

    May 1, 2019 at 7:44 pm

    My brother, Friend ( later to become my sister-in-law ) and self would sail and the Coburg one to three or four times a summer as teenagers and young adults in the 40’s. I was the only of the three of us to ride on the fast ferry to Toronto 3 times; twice with my bicycle and once with my Volkswagen hippie mobile
    I must admit the ones on the Coburg we’re more fun on the ride over and back and liked the cost.

23. Jet Thomas says:

    January 26, 2020 at 3:26 pm

    My father, Milton Thomas or Uncle Milty as he was known during his 43 years in the Roll Coating Department of Kodak, was born in Canada and emigrated to Rochester in his early twenties. After becoming established here in Rochester, he periodically used the Cobourg Ferry to visit his family back in Canada. Unfortunately, I cannot remember more of what Dad used to tell me about his experiences on board. Thank you for creating such an important historical site.

24. Mark says:

    February 6, 2023 at 9:50 am

    My great grandfather was the passenger conductor on that train. My father used to watch him back the train into the station (Nick Tahoe). I have not figured out where they turned it around to back it in.
    My mothers parents immigrated from Canada on one of the Ferries. Somewhere is the form they completed at the Port of Rochester immigration.
    Thanks for the great information.

25. Peter Johnson says:

    May 8, 2024 at 7:45 am

    What was the journey time for the crossing?
    Was a passport required?
    How much was a single passenger ticket during the war years?
    How much quicker was it to take the ferry than the drive round?

Post a Comment...