Bemus Point: The Ferry and Chautauqua Lake

William Bemus purchased land on both sides of Chautauqua Lake in eighteen oh five for a dollar and fifty cents an acre and moved his family to the east shore the following spring. Five years later, in eighteen eleven, one of the first acts of the newly incorporated Chautauqua County was to license Bemus's son Thomas to operate a commercial ferry across the lake's narrows.

The Bemus family ran that ferry for generations. The crossing saved travelers a long detour around the lakeshore, and the village that grew around the landing became a popular resort destination as Chautauqua Lake developed in the late eighteen hundreds. Chautauqua County eventually bought the ferry and made it part of the county highway system. The old ferry was the only way across until nineteen eighty-two, when the I-eighty-six bridge just to the south made it obsolete.