Interview with Sally Dixon Rakes, May 2, 2019 by Mills Kelly

Sally Dixon Rakes, age 79, grew up on the New River in Carroll County. Her father and grandfather operated Dixon’s Ferry, bringing local residents back and forth across the river where the Dixon’s Ferry Bridge stands today, just north of Fries. Until recently, the Dixon family had been living on on the river since 1838 on land that had been given to their ancestor Alexander Dixon as a grant. Hikers on the Appalachian Trail cross the New River using the Dixon family’s ferry. If they came from the east, hikers simply went to the family’s door, knocked, and asked for a ride across the river for five cents. If they came from the west, hikers had to shout across the river, which is quite wide at that point, until someone hear them and poled across to get them.

Sally’s memories of life on the river are very clear and she still remembers a few Appalachian Trail hikers who came to her parents’ house during their hike through the region.

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Interviewer: What was it like growing up on the river?

Sally Rakes: It was nice. It was fun. I enjoyed it. We at a lot of fish, squirrels. That’s what normal people did. We had floods sometimes. Daddy told me that once a Pentecostal church washed away and floated right by the house. That might have been in 1940 when the big flood happened.

My great grandfather built the ferry. He had a blacksmith shop out back. He used to “put people across.” That’s what we called it. They would holler from across the river and someone would go get them. That was quite a holler. Yes, but it carried pretty well there. We could hear them. Daddy or sometimes Momma would go and get them.

Interviewer: Where did you go for shopping and things like that?

Sally Rakes: We went to Galax. Fries was closer, but it was on the other side. So we went to Galax. Harvey Dixon used to go to Fries sometimes to sell vegetables.

I remember white markings for the trail along the railroad tracks on the other side of the river. We used to walk down the tracks sometimes and would see them there. I also remember seeing them on rocks on the Fries Road. A big old rock that came out to the edge of the road had a white mark on it. I knew it was for the trail. That rock is gone now. The took it away when they widened the road years ago. Maybe the 1960s. It was just before the convenience store. York Hill Road.

I still remember one hiker [Gene Espy]. He sent us a Christmas card. He had a beard and a walking stick. When Daddy brought him over, he sat and talked with us a while. I was seven or eight then. Sometimes the hikers would sit and talk with us for a while. I remember thinking they were probably hiking the trail.

Interviewer: How did your family come to be on the river?

Sally Rakes: Back in 1835 my great great grandfather got a land grant. Alexander Dixon. He got 3200 acres. I wonder what it was like then. Probably all trees. But he built a home there on the river. His son built the blacksmith shop. He made some moonshine too.

Interviewer: What was it like growing up on the river?

Sally Rakes: We were just river rats. There were six of us. My mother had six children in six years. I was the oldest girl.

Interviewer: Tell me about the boats.

Sally Rakes: It would just skim across the top of the water. There were sloped gunnels. It was 30’ long and only a few inches high. Lower at the ends. It wasn’t very wide at all. It was painted red. We called it Red Bird. 

I’ve seen my daddy put eight square bales of hay in that boat. All 8 of us could fit in it. We would go across the river to Fries. Sometimes Daddy would pole us all at once. Every spring he put a fresh coat of tar on it.

Interviewer: Did the river ever freeze.

Sally Rakes: Oh yes. One year it froze so much that Daddy drove a jeep across. It scared us to watch that. When the ice would push up on shore, sometimes it would push fish out with it and we’d just walk along and pick them up.