Lynch's Ferry

Lynch came from Missouri and built the ferry in 1822: a flatboat pulled across by hand on a rope, on the main land route from South Texas to the Mexican border. In 1831 the ayuntamiento fined him for selling merchandise and liquor without a license. In the Runaway Scrape of April 1836 fleeing Texans crowded the crossing; Dilue Rose Harris later recalled waiting three days there with 5,000 others, and when Lynch raised his toll, President David G. Burnet threatened to seize the ferry. Lynch died on February 17, 1837. By 1890 the crossing was free.

What the plaque says

Lynch's Ferry Established before 1824 by Nathaniel Lynch, one of Austin's first colonists on land granted August 19, 1824. Granted exclusive privilege to operate ferry at this point January 1, 1830, by Ayuntamiento of San Felipe. Now known as Lynchburg Ferry.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site — 3.1 mi
  The 1,200 acres of coastal prairie and marsh where the Texas Revolution ended in eighteen minutes, and the 567-foot shaft of fossil-studded limestone that has stood over them since 1939.
• Space Center Houston — 17 mi
  The visitor center of NASA's Johnson Space Center at Clear Lake, with flown capsules, a shuttle replica riding a 747, and tram tours to Mission Control and a Saturn V.
• Emancipation Park — 19 mi
  The Third Ward park that freedpeople bought for Juneteenth in 1872, rebuilt in 2017 on Emancipation Avenue and still the center of the city's June 19 celebration.
• Sam Houston Park and the Heritage Society — 19 mi
  Ten historic buildings gathered in a downtown park below the skyscrapers, among them the 1870 house of the Reverend Jack Yates, built five years after emancipation.

More markers nearby

• Hannah Este Burnet — 1.6 mi
• Lorenzo de Zavala — 2.8 mi
• de Zavala Plaza — 3.1 mi
• Homesite (Point Pleasant) of William Scott — 3.9 mi