Lynchburg Ferry:
Baytown had it first

Just when it seemed local history held no more surprises, I read that the original Lynchburg Ferry was not in Lynchburg. It was on Crystal Bay in present-day Baytown.

According to researcher Janet K. Wagner of the Harris County Historical Commission, Nathaniel Lynch started the ferry service in 1822 on Crystal Bay where he also built a home and a store. The ferry -- a raft, really, that accommodated only one wagon or buggy at a time -- ran back and forth to a landing south of Peggy McCormick's house on Peggy's Lake. (McCormick's name would go down in history as the owner of the land where the Battle of San Jacinto was fought.)

Upon arrival from Missouri in 1822, Lynch received a Mexican land grant of 4,428 acres and cleared a 150-acre homestead on the east side of Crystal Bay. Already experienced in running a ferry in Missouri, he decided Crystal Bay would be a safe, calm place to establish a ferry operation. In addition, he had other ways to make a living. He's listed in the 1826 census as a farmer and stock raiser.

Lynch eventually and reluctantly moved his ferry landing upstream, where the San Jacinto River meets Buffalo Bayou. When granting him a ferry license in 1829, government authorities at San Felipe told him to relocate, but the ferry's CEO took his good time going about it. Finally he complied in 1830. The natives were getting restless by then and demanding a more convenient ferry crossing, nearer the increasingly busy confluence of waterways.

Wagner wrote that Clarissa Patching bought the Crystal Bay home for $750, but Margaret Henson, in her book "The History of Baytown," said the home was on Scott Bay. Maps drawn in the 1800s are printed on the inside front and back covers of the Henson book, and they indicate Scott Bay had two other identities, Patching Bay and Turkey Bay.

Actually the home could have fronted both bays since the Lynch property was located about where Scott and Crystal bays meet. If I were giving directions back in the era of the Brownwood subdivision, that would be near the intersection of Mapleton Street and Bayshore Drive.

Anyway, the exact location would be good to pinpoint and could be fodder for a future historical marker in the Baytown Nature Center, the former Brownwood subdivision where all three bays meet - Scott, Crystal and Burnet.

I wonder if Wagner realizes she dropped a bombshell in regard to Lynch's first ferry. We BIBs (Born In Baytown) accept the news gladly, though, because he, wife Fannie and their children came to Texas as members of Stephen F. Austin's cream-of-the-cream colony of 300 families, and both Mr. and Mrs. Lynch played an important part in the Texas Revolution. It's an honor to claim them as former Baytonians, even though in their day the name Baytown was unheard of.

The ferry operation -- that Lynch wanted to keep on Crystal Bay and not move upstream -- continues to this day as the oldest in Texas and one of the oldest, continually operating, free-of-charge ferries in the U.S.


Copyright Wanda Orton Baytown Sun Columnist
"Wandering" March 1, 2017 column

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