She Who Dared | Alice of Dunk’s Ferry (1686-1802)

Alice of Dunk’s Ferry was born in Philadelphia in 1686 to enslaved parents from Barbados. Some referred to her as Black Alice or Old Alice. This bold woman was a storyteller, oral historian, and toll taker whose life spanned three different centuries. 

In 1691, Sam Carpenter, a friend of William Penn, purchased Alice when she was five and put her to work at a tavern near Independence Hall. She later recalled lighting Penn’s pipe on one of his visits, for which he tipped her a penny. When Alice turned ten, Carpenter moved her to Bensalem (in Bucks County) to work as a Dunk’s Ferry toll taker for the next forty years. The ferry operated between the west bank of the Delaware River in Bensalem, just south of the mouth of Neshaminy Creek, and Dunk’s Ferry (now Bethany, NJ). 

Alice excelled at being on the water and fishing. During the Revolutionary War, reports say she rowed George Washington across the Delaware River in a raft-like ferry. Black Alice also established fisheries along the river. She caught shad and salted them in barrels to sell to ships. Even when she went blind, she still rowed out to fish and returned with a good catch.

Alice watched Philadelphia transform from an early river settlement into a new nation’s capital. Her engraved portrait appeared in Volume 2 of Isaiah Thomas’s “Eccentric Biography” (Worcester, 1804). He wrote of her remarkable memory and skill as a historian and storyteller. Known for her piety, but illiterate, she asked people to read the Bible to her. She was an enthusiastic member of Christ Church, riding her horse the 16.8 miles to church, often at a gallop, until she was ninety-five. 

Between the ages of 96 and 100, Alice lost her sight. Her sight returned enough to perceive moving objects by the time she reached the age of 102.

Thomas reported that just “before she died her hair became perfectly white and the last of her teeth dropt sound from her head aged 116 years.”