Mollie Sneden - West of The Hudson

West of The Hudson

Mollie and Robert moved directly across the Hudson from Dobbs Ferry with their five children in about 1740, where it is believed they rented from a local land-owner named Robert Corbett. Their new home was on land which was claimed by both New York and New Jersey. The dispute was not legally settled for nearly 30 years, when a commission appointed by the King of England set the border officially in 1769. The surveyor's description measures the state line as 79 chains and 27 links south of the Sneden house, placing their property in New York. Although this was new property for the Snedens, both Mollie and Robert would have known it well as the landing site of the Dobbs's ferry. While living on the west side of the Hudson, Mollie and Robert had four more children, the last born in 1750. This brought the total number of their children to nine.

After their move in 1740 Robert worked at his farming profession, and Mollie relieved his burden of labor by operating the ferry landing. She may have run a ferry as early as 1745. A surveyor's map from that year illustrating the larger area known as the Lockhart Patent shows "Sneedings house the fferry ." The ferry received a boost when an improved road was built down the hilly terrain to the landing in 1745. Whether or not she began as ferry mistress in 1745, Mollie Sneden was certainly acting in that capacity by 1753.

The original Dobbs ferry was said to be a periauger, a row-and-sail dugout, sometimes with two masts. Mollie Sneden would have known this, and she probably began her ferry with periaugers. They were popular colonial craft capable of negotiating shallow water while carrying heavy loads. Vessels of this variety were typically used in early ferry operations on the Hudson, and several miles downriver by Fort Lee, Stephen Bourdette began his ferry service using one. In addition to periaugers, Mollie Sneden would have used larger craft; for she ferried wagons as well as people. A larger type of ferry used on the Hudson during this period was powered by a paddle wheel, which in turn was rotated by horses or mules on a treadmill. She definitely would have required a larger vessel for a crossing she is said to have made in 1775 carrying a coach. It bore Martha Washington and her son, John, complete with his wife, liveried footmen and postillon, when Martha was en route to visit George Washington in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Hudson River is relatively wide between Sneden's Landing and Dobbs Ferry, and a crossing varied in duration. The length of time was affected by variable winds and the tides, which are still strong only a few miles above New York Harbor. Not only did the Sneden ferry cross the Hudson River, it also transported goods southward to New York City.

Robert and Mollie purchased 120 acres (0.49 km2) in 1752, which included the ferry site and Corbett house. Robert died in 1756 at the age of 46, and the eldest son, Abraham, inherited all of his property, in accordance with English law. In that same year, the widow Mollie Sneden was granted a license to operate a tavern. The Ferry continued with other Dobbs Family members at the helm, with the help of her seven sons in 1758 or 1759. Although Dobb's Ferry had always used this landing as the western terminus of its ferry service, until now it had been called different names: sometimes simply "the ferry," sometimes Paramus or Rockland, and occasionally Dobbs Ferry on both sides of the river. From this period the landing took the name Sneden's Landing. Thus, Dobbs Ferry took the Family name and Sneden's Landing took Mollies married name. Through the 1800s Sneden's Landing remained the center for riparian activities for the local region, which is called Palisades today.

Mollie had been licensed to operate a tavern in 1756, and in 1763 she received a license to operate a public house serving "strong Liquors" which she operated from "Stone House," her dwelling. Two years later a marriage license was granted to Mollie Sneden and George Calhoun. It is not clear if Mollie actually carried out the marriage license by marrying George Calhoun. She is noted as living with her bachelor son, Dennis, but never with George Calhoun. In 1765, her first son, Abraham, distributed his father's property in ten equal segments, one portion going to his mother.