Oral History about the Ouray, Utah, ferry across the Green River, as told to Bryan Brown on 29 April 2014 by Mark Hall, a 67-year-old resident of Salt Lake City (phone 801.722.8326).
Mark’s grandfather was named Mark Moroni Hall (ca. 1898 – 1972) and he was a sheep rancher in the Uintah Basin of northeastern Utah. Every year prior to 1935, when he went out of business due to the Great Depression, he would move his herd of about 1500 sheep from their summer pasture in the High Uintah Mountains to their winter pasture southeast of Ouray and back again in the spring, a round-trip of approximately 100 miles. This meant he had to take his sheep across the river via the ferryboat at Ouray twice each year. Mark does not know if his grandfather used the “Indian Ferry” or the Uintah Railway Company Ferry at Ouray, only that they crossed at Ouray, and that his grandfather said the fare to cross on the ferry was a nickel for each sheep. If his flock was about 1500 sheep, that would come to a fare of $75 per season or $150 for the year, a considerable amount of money at that time.
It was apparently somewhat difficult to get the sheep to get on board the ferryboat, even with their sheepherding dogs. So Mark’s grandfather had a goat named “Old Abe”, because it was born on Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, that he trained to gently lead (i.e. lure) his sheep onto the ferryboat. The family jokingly called Old Abe the Judas Goat because it led the sheep to where they would not have otherwise easily gone. Old Abe evidently knew exactly what his job was because he would get out in front of the sheep on the ferry landing and walk out onto the ferryboat, in essence showing the sheep how to do it. And then on the other side of the river after the sheep had disembarked, Old Abe knew his job was to remain on the ferryboat as it went back to get more sheep. Mark said that his grandfather used Old Abe for about 10 years, and that the story of the goat leading the sheep onto the ferryboat became somewhat of a legendary, often-told family story through the decades.
Mark said that his brother might have some old family photographs that could show the ferryboat across the Green River at Ouray, and that he would contact his brother and see if any photographs did exist.