Transcript

Ferry over the Missouri.

The Legislature of Iowa granted the right of ferry we are told, to Messrs. Clark, Townsend & Brophy across the Missouri river at Council Bluffs. If we are correctly informed, they were to locate their ferry at some point, and from that point their charter privileges were to extend ten miles up and ten miles down the river. We have understood that they located their ferry last year at Trading Point, and then it became the load star that guided the "wise men of the East," in their survey of the State Road whose terminus, interest and consistency decreed should meet the Ferry at the point of its location.

Now it is more than probable that the tide of Salt Lake and California Emigration will cross the Missouri river at or near the mouth of the Great Platte and the question arises in our mind, whether the chartered privileges of the above named gentlemen are elastic enough to stretch down to the mouth the Platte or below? If they are, what will become of the State road? That will have to be shifted all in order that the road may agree with the ferry.

We want a good Ferry at the mouth of the Platte; and one, too that is responsible, and that may be depended upon, so as to enable our emigration to pass up on the south side of that river, avoid the dangerous crossing of the Loup Fork, matters little to us who keeps it. All the interest that we have in it, or that we wish to have is to s[ee] a safe and commodious ferry established there.

It is rumored that there is only one right of way through the Indian country from this point, secured by treaty stipulations; and that way is said to be on the north side of the Platte. Concerning this matter, we have no knowledge; but we have supposed that the right of way to the emigrant through the Indian country was as free and diverse as the right and diversity of way on the ocean to the storm-beaten mariner. We will take some little pains to inform ourself on this subject, and if we find that there is no right of way on the South side of the Platte, nearer than old Fort Kearney, then old Fort Kearney is the point that our emigration will make for.