DUANE
Duane's take
Now, I'm tellin' this one straight from the official marker, so you know every word of it is the real article. Pull up a log and listen close, because this little stretch of river has seen some history. Burnam's Ferry.
First ferry in what is now Fayette County. It was established about 1824, right at the crossing of the La Bahia Road, by a man named Jesse Burnam. Think about that for a moment — 1824, and somebody's got to get folks and their wagons and their livestock across that water, and Jesse Burnam was the one who stepped up to do it.
That crossing on the La Bahia Road wasn't just any spot on the map. It was a road that mattered, and a ferry that mattered right along with it. Now here's where the story gets its weight.
March 19, 1836. The Army of the Republic of Texas came through and crossed on that ferry. You can almost hear it — the creak of the ropes, the water pushing against the hull, soldiers moving across one load at a time, knowing what was behind them and not entirely sure what was ahead.
The Mexican Army was advancing. Time was not a luxury anyone had to spare. And then General Sam Houston gave the order.
Destroy the ferry. Not abandon it, not leave it behind — destroy it. So that the advancing Mexican Army could not use it.
Jesse Burnam's ferry, the first ferry in all of present-day Fayette County, the one he'd built and worked at that La Bahia Road crossing since about 1824 — gone, by order, to slow an army down. Sometimes the most important thing a ferry ever does is the last crossing it carries.
What the marker says
First ferry in present-day Fayette County. Established about 1824 at the crossing of the La Bahia Road by Jesse Burnam. After the Army of the Republic of Texas crossed on March 19, 1836, the ferry was destroyed by order of General Sam Houston to prevent its use by the advancing Mexican Army.