Millersburg Ferry
Millersburg, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
The only surviving ferry service across the Susquehanna began as early as 1825. Boats were poled by manpower until 1873, when the first paddlewheeler was acquired. In the 1920's, gasoline engines replaced steam power, and the paddlewheels were shifted from the side to the stern. The ferry landing is a short distance west.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Long before bridges tamed the Susquehanna, communities depended on ferries to cross Pennsylvania's broad, shallow river. The Millersburg service began around 1825 with flat boats pushed across by hand-poling, then modernized with a paddlewheeler in 1873 and gasoline engines in the 1920s. Remarkably, it endured as the last surviving wooden double-stern paddlewheel ferry on the river, a working relic of a vanished mode of travel.
Why it matters
It preserves a rare, living example of the river-ferry transportation that stitched together river towns across early America before the age of bridges.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Millersburg Ferry
Buffalo Township, PA · est. 1973
Across the Susquehanna from Millersburg, this Perry County landing anchored the last surviving ferry service on the river. Begun around 1825 with hand-poled boats, the crossing modernized to a paddlewheeler in 1873 and to gasoline power in the 1920s, when the wheels shifted to the stern. It endured as a rare working example of the river ferries that once linked Pennsylvania's river communities.
Pennsylvania Canal (Susquehanna Division)
Watts Township, PA · est. 1952
Running roughly 41 miles from Duncan's Island up to Northumberland, the Susquehanna Division opened around 1831 and worked until the turn of the twentieth century. Its thirteen locks, seven aqueducts, dam, and towpath bridge were a considerable feat of hand-dug engineering following the river's course. Travelers along this road can still spot traces of the old canal cut into the landscape.
Pennsylvania Canal
Reed Township, PA · est. 1952
Between 1826 and 1834 Pennsylvania built a sprawling state-owned system of canals and railroads meant to link Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Erie in a single web of inland trade. It embraced six main canal divisions and two railroads, a public works gamble to keep the state competitive with New York's Erie Canal. Here the Susquehanna, Juniata, and Eastern Divisions came together in a canal basin, one of the network's key junctions.
Pennsylvania Canal (Eastern Division)
Reed Township, PA · est. 1952
The Eastern Division of the Pennsylvania Canal, built between 1826 and 1833, carried iron, coal, and lumber along the lower Susquehanna and remained in use until 1901. Here at the old Clark's Ferry towpath bridge, canal boats crossed the wide river to continue their journeys. The Lykens Valley coal trade fed into the system from the east by way of the Wiconisco Canal, adding the region's anthracite to the flow of commerce.