THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 15, 1996 TAG: 9609130268
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 16 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: OLDE TOWNE JOURNAL
SOURCE: ALAN FLANDERS
LENGTH: 101 lines
IN MAY 1811, Portsmouth and Norfolk were on the brink of an armed feud.
Militia were alerted on both sides of the Elizabeth River as a dispute between the two towns seemed to be getting completely out of hand.
What was the argument about that had both sides ready to draw blood?
The Norfolk County Court appointed a group of prominent Portsmouth citizens to a Norfolk County Ferry Commission with directions to survey and repair the county ferry landings on both sides of the river.
On May 11 of that year, commission members Tapley Webb, Jordan Marchant, Holt Wilson, Mordecai Cooke and William Pritchard landed on the Norfolk side and, within their charter, conducted a complete survey of the dock.
Given permission to purchase materials and hire workmen, the group contracted for an overhaul of the Norfolk site.
Two days after work began on Aug. 12, the borough of Norfolk acted. As a gang of carpenters looked on in shock and disbelief from their perches around the dock, the town sergeant demanded that all repairs come to an immediate halt by orders of the borough of Norfolk court.
That's when things reached a flashpoint.
The sergeant went on to state that he had orders to tear down any new construction directed by the Portsmouth delegation. According to Mildred M. Holladay's ``History of Portsmouth,'' provided by the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Museum, the good sergeant was resolute in his demands.
Holladay wrote: ``The sergeant urged the superintendent of work not to proceed with the repairs, as it would be his duty at night to pull down all that was done in the day.''
As the workmen scattered from the project, the incident was immediately reported to the commission by the foreman. Insulted by the Norfolk sergeant's threat, the Portsmouth delegation ordered the workmen to return and continue ``until stopped by force.''
The next day, Webb, Marchant, Wilson, Cooke and Pritchard returned to the Norfolk ferry dock to see that their workmen were protected.
Sure enough, the Norfolk sergeant returned. But this time, according to Holladay, he ``appeared with an armed bodyguard, bearing a new order.'' The armed bodyguard ``consisted of Norfolk citizens, Samuel Mosely, Joel Hodges, Nathaniel Burgess, Godfrey Coxe, James Gleason, Henry Guy and George Evans.
For long moments, neither side blinked. But almost immediately the Norfolk group had achieved their first goal. The hammers and saws fell silent. Whether it was from orders, enjoyment at seeing a good fight from a front row seat, or just curiosity about how each side might choose to back down, the workers again left their jobs.
Fearing that the stalemate might end in a real fight, the matter was taken up by both sides in the Norfolk County Court. The sergeant from Norfolk and his escort were asked to show why they first interfered in a court order to maintain the ferry dock.
At the same time, the Norfolk delegation petitioned the borough court with an injunction blocking further work on the site. However the injunction was never executed pending the Norfolk County Court's decision.
Once it was determined that the Portsmouth side was going to win in court based on some muddled historical precedent and sheer political clout, Norfolk finally blinked.
For the remainder of 1811, work continued without interruption on the Norfolk side. There was, however, plenty of civil anger and jealousy between the two sides as the issue continued to smolder along the opposing river banks.
Fearing that the entire incident would next trigger violence, Swepson Whitehead, Portsmouth's most prominent attorney, a man respected on both sides of the Elizabeth, was hired by the Norfolk County commission to take the matter to Richmond.
There he asked two of the state's most revered lawyers, John Wickham and Daniel Call, to investigate the issue from the earliest Colonial records. They revealed that Norfolk's founder, Nicholas Wise, first sold part of his property to form the borough of Norfolk and part of this parcel was provided as a ferry landing as early as 1683.
After a long and tedious lawsuit, Wickham and Call determined that Portsmouth did have legal control over the ferry dock on the Norfolk side. In the end, it was the taxpayers as usual left holding the bag as it took a whopping $195.95 in public funds to cover the legal fees of Whitehead, Wickham and Call.
According to Holladay, Norfolk made several more ``grabs'' at the ferry.
``In 1850, Norfolk demanded fifty cents for every load of wood landed on the wharf. The county again had recourse to the law and was again victorious.''
In the 1870s, Norfolk made another grab at the ferry dock, ordering that a certain part of it be set aside for the city fish market. This time she appealed to the legislature to get her way.
Again Norfolk was unsuccessful.
After Portsmouth was incorporated into a city in 1858, a joint Portsmouth-Norfolk County commission ran the ferry throughout the remainder of the 19th century with Norfolk still arguing for legal rights over their side.
The argument between the two sides was put to rest at 6:30 p.m. Aug. 31, 1955, when the Norfolk County ferry made its final run to Norfolk.
The opening of the Downtown Tunnel put the public ferry out of business, settling the feud once and for all. ILLUSTRATION: Photos
Above is the Portsmouth ferry landing, photographed in 1895. At left
is the ferry terminal on the Norfolk side of the Elizabeth River.
The long-running feud between the two cities over who had control of
the landings raged until 1811, when it was determined after a
lawsuit that Portsmouth did have legal control over the ferry dock
on the Norfolk side. The argument wasn't put to rest until Aug. 31,
1955, when the Norfolk County ferry made its final run to Norfolk. by CNB