The Chappy Ferry will run on the traditional abbreviated Christmas Day schedule on Wednesday, Dec. 25. During the morning, starting at 7 a.m., the ferry will make a trip on the hour for whomever is waiting in line at that time. Specifically, the ferry will run at 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 a.m. At noon, the continuous service resumes.

Fifty years ago, when I began my career on the Chappy Ferry, Christmas Day ferry service was on call only. That was sufficient for the half dozen year-round households and the half dozen off-season holiday visitors. Only half a dozen trips were made that day. You would either sign up the day before or call the duty captains, John Willoughby or Dick Hewett, at home on Christmas Day to arrange a time.

Suspension of regular service was not such a big deal back then as the normal winter schedule was already quite abbreviated. On school days, the bus (Mrs. Arnold’s station wagon), would have a trip all its own at 7 a.m. Then John or Dick would start shuttling back and forth steadily from 8 a.m. to noon, stop for a lunch hour and then run from 1 to 4 p.m. If there was a line at noon that caused the lunch break to start at say 12:15 p.m., the ferry driver would come back at 1:15 p.m.. One of John Willoughby’s many sayings was: “It’s called a lunch hour and an hour is 60 minutes. You people get to decide when it starts”.

Another oft heard saying of John’s was: “Let ‘em gather.” A round trip on the first On Time took at least 10 minutes as it involved turning the ferry around each way since it was not a double ended vessel. There was no heat in the pilot house and winters were a whole lot chillier than they are now. If traffic was sparse, he might sit in the ferryhouse for 15 minutes until a second car showed up. You then had an opportunity to listen to hair-raising stories about his former life on the high seas.

There used to be a big brass bell mounted on a pole on the Chappy side to summon the ferry when John was holed up waiting for traffic from the town side. It was firmly attached to a substantial steel bracket by a very rusty bolt. One morning it was gone. I recalled people walking over to that spot while gazing over at the empty ferry in the Edgartown slip, reaching up for the clapper and grasping only thin air. All that remained was a very shiny end of the steel bracket. Just a few days before, co-incidentally, K. T. Galley hardware, sold the first battery powered reciprocating saw. With the right blade, you could cut through steel like it was butter. And somebody had done just that down at the ferry point. The whereabouts of the bell remains unknown.