A Grim Ferry Tale

By Laura Longley

An 11-year lawsuit over landing rights, a snapped cable, a new owner, a costly study, hostile negotiations, and now the specter of eminent domain. Could this story have a happy ending?

Once upon a time, a hundred ferries plied the Potomac River carrying farmers and livestock, horses and buggies, Confederate and Union troops to and from Maryland and Virginia. 

Of all those ferry operations, only one—White’s Ferry, established as Conrad’s Ferry in 1786—stayed afloat for decades more. Then came Nov. 23, 2020, when a court ruling on an 11-year lawsuit sounded the ferry’s death knell. Finding no record documenting the creation of a public landing at Rockland Farm on the Virginia shore, Circuit Court Judge Stephen E. Sincavage awarded Rockland $102,175 in damages for trespassing, property damage, and breach of a pre-existing agreement when the ferry operator constructed a concrete retaining wall.

Several weeks later, on December 28, a ferry cable snapped, putting an end to this four-minute river crossing and adding 25 miles for 800 vehicles a day to travel to and from the same points via the Potomac River bridge at Point of Rocks. The only other bridge option: the American Legion Bridge 40 miles downriver.

Drivers, bikers, hikers, shoppers, and tourists lamented the shutdown and wondered if there was any hope of the ferry’s reopening. Loudoun County and Montgomery County, Maryland, officials began assessing the impact of the ferry closing on the regional transportation network.

Enter Chuck Kuhn, founder and CEO of JK Moving Services and JK Holdings, LLC, who has earned a reputation in Loudoun for placing conservation easements on more than 22,000 acres to protect and preserve vulnerable vistas and threatened habitats. On Feb. 12, 2021, Kuhn and his wife, Stacy, announced their purchase of the Maryland ferry landing, service buildings, small grocery, and the vessel.

The Kuhns quickly undertook upgrades to the ferry, aiming for a restart in six weeks. However, because there was no transferable agreement allowing the ferry to load and unload vehicles on the Rockland Farm site, the Kuhns began negotiations with the Rockland owners to either buy or place a permanent easement there.

And that’s where everything stalled—and remains so.

The ferry and the landing

White’s Ferry owes its name to Elijah V. “Lige” White, Confederate commander of the 35^th Battalion of Virginia Cavalry. After the war, he bought the ferry service, which was located just up the river from his 355-acre farm near the site of the Battle of Ball’s Bluff. He named his ferry boat in honor of his former commander, General Jubal A. Early. The boat was renamed “Historic White’s Ferry” in June 2020. 

What is today Rockland Farm, former landing site of the ferry, was originally part of the farm of Colonel Burgess Ball, near White’s farm. General George Rust, ancestor of the current Rockland owners, acquired the original 485-acre property—now nearly 600 acres—in 1817 and built the present manor house. Five generations later, Rockland Farm is organized as a limited liability company with Peter Fitzhugh Brown as majority member and his sisters, Libby Brown Devlin and Harriet Rust Brown Dickerson, as minority members.

Peter Brown is a hedge fund founder and CEO; Harriet Dickerson is co-owner of Plum Grove Cyclery in Leesburg. Libby Devlin is Rockland Farm’s manager and a registered nurse who spent several years caring for their late mother, Loudoun County supervisor and conservationist Betsey Brown, who died in 2019. Their late father, Harry Brown, is best known as the once-struggling financial consultant who came up with an idea—the money-market mutual fund—that spawned a $3.5 trillion industry.

What is the ferry worth?

To clarify and quantify the value of the ferry to the regional transportation network and economy, the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors commissioned a $150,000 study conducted jointly with Montgomery County. 

Their independent consultants evaluated short-term options for resuming ferry service between the two counties, long-term benefits if the service were enhanced, impact on the transportation network if there were no ferry, and issues and opportunities for operating the ferry.

Staff members of the Loudoun County Department of Transportation and Capital Infrastructure presented the findings at a Board of Supervisors business meeting on Nov. 16 and the following day in Poolesville, Maryland.

In the short term, the study estimated that restarting the ferry service would require minimal low-cost actions. These include inspecting the existing vessel to confirm its seaworthiness, hiring staff, and restringing the ferry cable. 

In the long term, changes in infrastructure, including improvements in staffing, roadways enhancements to support queuing vehicles, fare collection, lighting, and vessel capacity could be considered to improve the system.

If the legal issues were resolved, the study indicated that the ferry could restart in as few as 12 weeks. 

Market impacts of resuming ferry operations include travel time savings, travel cost savings, safety savings, the value of emissions avoided, and the value of trips not taken. 

Under the restore ferry service alternative, total impacts are estimated to be a little over $9 million in 2023 and $13 million in 2040. Under the enhance ferry service alternative, total impacts are estimated to be approximately $9 million in 2023 and $24 million in 2040. 

If the ferry were converted to a publicly owned service, however, it would likely require about $3 million a year in taxpayer subsidies.

What is the ferry landing worth?

It depends on whom you ask.

According to a statement Kuhn made two days after the recent Board meeting, “We have made numerous very fair offers to lease and/or purchase the landing site in good faith with no success. Rockland Farm’s repeated demands for $2 million cash for the small parcel of land that constitutes the landing site or 50 cents a car each way along with unacceptable deal terms made negotiations impossible.” 

He went on, “In addition to purchasing the landing site, at their request and our cost, we had the entire Rockland Farm appraised three times to explore the possibility of purchasing the whole farm as an option for reopening the landing site. We subsequently made a $13.5 million cash offer to purchase the entire farm … Rockland made no counteroffer and ultimately rejected our offer. We further proposed to donate the ferry and the land we own to the respective governments …to reopen the ferry for our region.”

The following day Devlin issued a written statement in response to Kuhn: “Rockland has been willing to come to the table … from day one. We continue to believe a volume-based fee of 50 cents per vehicle is a very reasonable price for the use of our landing. Even at significant risk to us, we have offered to enter a binding arbitration whereby a neutral third party would choose the fairest solution. We continue to hope that White’s Ferry [the Kuhns] will join us to arrive at a private arrangement to reopen this historic gem that has crossed the Potomac for as long any of us can remember.”

In addition to the landing site, its 600 acres, and early 19th century Federal home, Rockland Farm includes approximately a mile of valuable Potomac riverfront.

Is eminent domain imminent?

Except for Tony Buffington (R-Blue Ridge), most Loudoun County Supervisors have made clear they prefer a resolution between the private parties.

“We have not been the ones who have talked about eminent domain,” declared Board Chair Phyllis J. Randall (D-At Large). “In my opinion, we should get a professional mediator and get everyone in the room. We will offer our room upstairs as neutral ground. That’s what needs to happen.” However, in an email to Bethesda Magazine two days after the meeting, Chair Randall said that personally she does not want to take eminent domain off the table. “[I’m] not ready to take that action at this time. At its base this is a matter between two private parties. I am reluctant to have the government intervene,” she wrote.

“This is a dispute we don’t want to get involved in unless we absolutely have to,” said Supervisor Caleb Kershner (R-Catoctin).

Vice Chair Koran Saines (D-Sterling) agreed: “With all due respect to our colleagues across the river in Montgomery County, there’s so much interest in this ferry, but [they are] unwilling to tackle the bigger challenge, which we all know…is a new bridge.”

“That’s where the conversation should be,” added Matt Letourneau (R-Dulles).

Loudoun and Montgomery counties’ conversation on a bridge has been stalled far longer than any ferry negotiations or lawsuits. As Maryland State Del. David Fraser-Hidalgo, who attended the Loudoun County Board meeting, told Bethesda Beat, a bridge would take at least a decade to get built, and the transportation need is more immediate. “We need to get people back and forth on that ferry as soon as possible. So even having a conversation about a bridge is probably a 15- to 20-year endeavor,” he said. 

That conversation is further complicated by the simple fact that the Potomac River is part of Maryland up to the Virginia shore. So, for now, the conversation pivots back to the ferry. Supervisor Buffington noted that if both parties could not come to an agreement on the ferry in a reasonable amount of time, he would support eminent domain.

“I believe it’s critical, and I believe we need to reopen this regionally important pathway for the public,” he said.