It was named after its owner, Elijah White...
It appears to me that the present ferry owners must not have had the best representation, in court or out, because the state had built a road to the ferry crossing on or before 1795.
There all all sorts of laws regarding permitted use (even by neighbors and other civilians) plus government use plus the powers of eminent domain.
But I guess the paid lease they had for several years negated some of the allowable defenses.
Absolutely correct. The mere existence of the previous license agreement was an acknowledgement by both parties that the ferry company did not have a right to use the land. The problem is that the ferry company continued using the property after the license terminated. They should have just renegotiated the license when it terminated.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, we conservatives should be happy with this decision because the judge affirmed the supremacy of private property rights. The people on this thread saying the judge is corrupt are beyond clueless.
I think your last sentence is spot on. By signing a lease the ferry company was clearly acknowledging that it didn’t have a right to use the property under some kind of public access or “adverse possession” type of arrangement.