Posted on 12/28/2020 11:49:54 AM PST by 11th_VA
The resolution of a decade’s-long court case brought by a Virginia property owner required White’s Ferry, the historic Potomac River crossing in Poolesville, Maryland, to stop using its traditional landing across the river.
As a result, the ferry operator announced its closure via a Facebook post at 10 a.m., December 28, 2020.
For over two centuries, the ferry has docked on the Virginia side of the river.
A Virginia court ruled the ferry could no longer dock on the opposite shore at White’s Ferry Road in Loudoun County.
In fact, the judge, Stephen E. Sincavage of the Loudoun County Circuit Court awarded damages to the Virginia property owners in excess of $100,000, agreed that White’s Ferry had been trespassing since the end of a licensing agreement in 2004 and through an injunction, prevented White’s Ferry from continuing to use the land. The decision was written in late November.
The owners of the land in Virginia, known as Rockland, complained that White’s Ferry was unlawfully occupying its land. White’s Ferry argued for its right to use the landing due to having customers and business operations on that side of the river for over two centuries.
The case has been postponed and delayed and dismissed throughout the years before the most recent decision, written by Judge Steven E. Sincavage on Nov. 23, 2020...
(Excerpt) Read more at wtop.com ...
I remember reading articles in the DC newspapers and seeing on TV about the proposals to build a “western bypass” around DC somewhere in the vicinity of White’s Ferry, but preservationists were against it as it would ‘encourage urban sprawl.’ That was during my first tour in the Pentagon around 1980-81, and there still isn’t any new bridge to relieve the traffic on the American Legion Bridge. And neither did they build an ‘eastern bypass’ that would take traffic east of the DC beltway and down to a lower crossing of the Potomac River.
Just as 29 through Columbia is a canyon of noise barrier brick walls from the 4 lane converted from an old 2-lane. More of the incredibly overpriced real estate that is supported by the appalling 100K/job fedgov drones of every agency— Fedgov sprawl... and pushing out the original owners of the lands for several generations.
There is no way, none, zero, that Plaintiff's full title does not directly encompass the 1871 Act.
And why counsel for Defense didn't pay someone to go down to Loudoun County Courthouse and abstract the hell out of that is jaw-dropping.
While on a romantic jaunt to Point of Rocks, I thought we’d take a quick ride on White’s ferry. Once we got to the Maryland side, it took hours of waiting in line to get back across. Still and all, a quaint summer day.
maybe that is Rockland’s intent. Seems odd that the ferry owner would not pay rent for the land use on the other side— wonder if there is any ownership on the maryland landing side.
Lt. Col Elijah White (CSA) purchased the large farm known as Ball’s Farm before the war, and the ferry after the war. Battle of Ball’s Bluff occurred there, on his land.
Note of trivia (odd bits of large business memory)— Ed Ball, who married a Dupont heiress, grew up in family place at Ball’s Bluff. He went on to own major East Coast railways, namely the Seaboard Coast Line (the Orange Blossom Special). Ed Ball kept the railway running through a major strike, which kept the supplies coming by rail during the Space Race, Canaveral Space Station. No union troubles at all. A real powerbroker— St. Joe Paper Co. of Pensacola, FL.
We had a lot of trouble with this in Utah some years back. New land buyers were trying to close well established access roads to fishing holes and areas of BLM land. They’d put up gates and people would rip them down.
Usually the courts told the new owners to pound sand. Unless they were the Sierra Club.
Change the name to ‘Black Fairy Road’ and make the crossing a Autonomous Zone Problem solved!
A license agreement was entered into by the company and the previous landowner in 1952. That expired in 2004. The current owner then filed suit in 2009. The mere existence of the license agreement took away any claim of an easement by prescription. If the ferry company felt like it needed a license to use the property, it was obviously not of the belief that it possessed a right to use the property in the absence of a license. It could perhaps be argued that the period after 2004 until the landowner filed suit in 2009 satisfied some of the prescriptive easement requirements, but it certainly did not satisfy the twenty-year requirement.
I’m amazed it took centuries to figure this one out.
Whatever right of way the ferry owner might have claimed under the common law of traditional use was clearly not in force once the original rental agreement was made. The claim that this breaks a tradition going back hundreds of years is nonsense, since the ferry paid rent as recently as the beginning of the 21st century.
I would have thought that they had an established easment after the first 100 years.
It didn’t though. It took 15 years, which was long enough. There was a contractual arrangement between the property owner and the ferry as recently as 2004.
Ok. Just saw post 50.
I-70 between Hagerstown and Frederick already has traffic jams. People are coming into this area whether they build a new bridge or not, so they should just build a new bridge. They can do it by connecting Sam Eig Highay in Maryland to Route 28 in Virginia, IMO.
Whites Ferry: the end of an era . . . or is it an error?
Maryland “Freak State” PING!
Exactly! There was no eminent domain here as the ferry was a private enterprise. Any landowner should be applauding this decision.
The problem is that the 1871 Order did not provide a map or, apparently, even a clear description of what was condemned. There was therefore nothing that could be used as a basis for a survey. The judge concluded, correctly in my view, that unless there was something that clearly defined the area condemned the defendant couldn't satisfy its burden to prove the location being used by the ferry company was permitted by the Order.
One more comment on property rights.
The judge and the lawyers are all incompetent.
If the farm owners are correct that the ferry company built structures or parking areas or whatever outside of the boundaries of the original ferry landing, they are entitled to either of two things: Demand removal of said improvements or payment for the area intruded by the ferry company. Denying the ferry company of any use was way off the mark.
St. Joe Paper Company was located in Port St. Joe, Florida
not in Pensacola.
(I used to work there)
People with money love to close roads and take over the land. The road leading to the dock will be abandon, and will give the landowner a whole bunch of new private riverfront. Clearly a grab for public land.
The state boundary is the mean high water mark on the Virginia side. The Calverts, the original proprietors of Maryland, owned the fishing and navigation rights in the Potomac (which is 7 miles wide near its mouth and is tidal as far upstream as past Georgetown in DC (there is a small dam that crosses the river there; prior to that, it was tidal as far as the Little Falls of the Potomac, which are near the DC-Maryland line.
The ferry allows a fairly direct route between Leesburg, VA and Rockville, MD. The closest bridge is at Point of Rocks, MD, which is the US 15 crossing linking Leesburg and Frederick, MD. In the other direction, the closest bridge is the American Legion Bridge used by the I-495 Beltway.
The actual ferry craft (it is a barge which navigates a route determined by a steel cable which stretches across the river) is named the General Jubal A. Early (a confederate officer).
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