John Overs kept several servants and apprentices, but he was such a frugal soul that even though he owned an estate equal to that of the best Alderman of London, entirely acquired by unceasing labour, frugality, and industry, his manners and standard of living were of the most miserable poverty.
He had an only daughter, very beautiful according to the tract, "and a pious disposition; whom he had care to see well and liberally educated, though at the cheapest rate; and yet so, that when she grew ripe and mature for marriage, he would suffer no man of what condition or quality so ever, by his goodwill, to have any sight of her, much less access to her."
A young man, however, who most likely had his eye more on being the Ferryman's heir than his son-in-law, took the opportunity, while he was engaged at the ferry, to meet her.
"The first interview," says the story, "pleased well; the second better; the third concluded the match between them." "In all this long interim, the poor silly rich old Ferryman, not dreaming of any such passages, but thinking all things to be as secure by land as he knew they were by water," continued his former wretched and penurious course of life.