Sandra Yeager's old photo of a booming town has been identified.
Calhoun football coach Buck Stewart said the old photo was his hometown, Sistersville. "I recognized the elementary
school in the middle. To the right, you can see the ferry running between Sistersville and Fly, Ohio.
Harrisville attorney Alan Haught said a similar picture, different angle and different time, was in David McKain's history of
oil and gas, and he identified the town as Sistersville.
Interestingly, in yesterday's Charleston Daily Mail, is a story about conflict over the ferry, which has served the area for 186
years. Sistersville's ferry service has survived storms, changes in ownership and even a three-year shutdown:
Read the Daily Mail story "Ferry landing at heart of conflict,
Sistersville asked to pay for land use"
By Toby Coleman
Daily Mail staff
Monday October 27, 2003.
"But West Virginia's last ferry on the Ohio River may not be able to outlast Ronnie Reed.
Reed, the town's former fire chief, became a threat to the ferry's future this summer when he bought its Fly, Ohio, landing
and announced he would charge the city to use it. The Sistersville City Council, claiming poverty, chose to temporarily
close the ferry earlier this month rather than pay Reed $400 a month for the landing.
"I'm the most hated person in Sistersville," Reed said with a laugh.
The anger is directed at Reed because some in this city of 1,588, including a few members of city council, believe he
bought the ferry landing to exact revenge for a 2001 wanton endangerment arrest. Reed denied the charge, but said his
arrest and subsequent conviction cost him "quite a bit of money."
"See, he's got a grudge against the city," Mayor Bill Rice said about Reed. "He's just mad at everybody. He just feels that
everybody's out to get him and nobody is."
Caught in the middle is the historic Sistersville ferry, which usually carries cars and trucks over a narrow stretch of the river
between April and mid-November. The $3-a-car ferry, established in 1817, is one of four left on the river's 981-mile
length from Pittsburgh to the Mississippi River.
Without the ferry, which takes about five minutes to cross the river, Sistersville residents who need to get to Ohio must
drive either to the bridge in New Martinsville, 10 miles to the north, or to the span in St. Marys, 17 miles to the south.
Town officials say they're optimistic they can find a new landing in time for the ferry's spring opening in April.
"Hopefully, this is not the end," said John Eckels, the chairman of the town's ferry board.
The story of the ferry fight begins Nov. 21, 2001, in a Tyler County field populated by two hunters. One was James C.
Moore. The other, according to Tyler County Prosecutor Dean Rohrig, was Reed.
The two hunters got into a verbal altercation after Moore accused the other hunter of trespassing, according to court
documents. After Moore called for help, the other hunter started to drive away on his all-terrain vehicle. He stopped about
40 yards away from Moore, picked up his rifle and fired five rounds in Moore's direction.
A little while later, the Sistersville police stopped Reed as he drove his ATV onto his property just outside of the city.
Officers from the State Police and the Division of Natural Resources then came along and arrested him for drunken driving.
Although the DUI charge later was dropped, prosecutors charged Reed with wanton endangerment in connection with the
incident.
Although Reed, 60, maintains his innocence, he pleaded guilty to wanton endangerment last winter.
His sentence, which included 240 hours of community service, brought him to the ferry. Mayor Rice and other city officials
suspect it was during his volunteer work that Reed learned a retired banker, and not the town, owned the Fly property
where the Sistersville ferry has docked for decades.
The banker, Gilbert Courtney of New Matamoras, Ohio, has let the city use the landing for free since it took over the ferry
service in 1980. In 1999, he even offered to give the town free use of the landing for as long as the ferry runs.
Courtney said the town never drew up the legal documents necessary to take advantage of his offer.
"The town itself, they dropped the ball," he said.
So when Reed began knocking on his door last summer, the city didn't have much of a claim to the landing. Although Reed
seemed to show up out of nowhere -- Courtney wasn't trying to sell the property -- he was persistent and willing to pay
Courtney the $27,500 the retired banker thought the two-acre parcel was worth.
Reed never told Courtney why he wanted the land.
"I just have something in mind for it," Courtney recalls Reed saying.
According to city leaders, Reed bought the land to try to squeeze money out of Sistersville for its role in his 2001
arrest.
"He's made comments around town that the city of Sistersville has cost him a lot of money and he was going to recoup
some of his expenses," Rice said.
When Reed offered to sell the landing to the town for $20,000 earlier this fall, city council responded with a lawsuit
accusing Reed of trying to close the ferry.
Reed, who also owns a campground and mobile home park, said he was "not going to admit to that" and maintains he
"bought it for investment."
On Oct. 16, city council agreed to drop the suit, then voted 5-2 against paying Reed for the ferry landing. City council
members said their decision was based on simple economics: the town couldn't afford to pay Reed $400 a month to run a
ferry service that only cleared an average monthly profit of about $100 this year.
The town's ferry shut down on the same day, about a month earlier than usual.
"I don't like it," Councilman Joe Jones said. "But it had to be done. We can't afford to do it otherwise."
Charleston Daily Mail
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