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Historic Rockland
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In 1871, Loudoun County condemned a landing at Rockland Farm of 1 perch by 16 perches for a Ferry landing called Conrad’s Ferry. At that time there were many ferries that crossed the Potomac River between Virginia and Maryland such as Edward’s Ferry and Sphinx Ferry. Unfortunately, there are no records that show where the condemnation for Conrad’s ferry occurred. In 1947, Elijah White wanted to reopen Conrad’s Ferry under the name White’s Ferry after a terrible flood which had closed Conrad’s ferry for a long time. They sent a letter to Rockland Farm acknowledging that they had no right to use Rockland’s property for the landing and asked the owners of Rockland Farm, for an agreement. In 1952, Elizabeth Rust Brown and Stanley Noel Brown, owners of Rockland Farm entered into a licensing agreement with White’s Ferry for $5.00 per year for the use of a landing at Rockland Farm so long as the ferry landing was never changed or enlarged under its current configuration. Since that time, White’s Ferry evolved from being a small operation of a few cars per day to a major commuter route.
Sixteen years ago, on July 4th weekend, White’s Ferry (without prior notification or permission from Rockland and without obtaining any government permits) unlawfully enlarged the ferry landing and built structures on Rockland. So doing violated a license agreement between White’s Ferry and Rockland that had been in place for more than half a century. Since then Rockland has been attempting to work out some fair arrangement with the owners of White’s Ferry. In response, all White’s Ferry has done is to delay, delay, delay, all the while making millions of dollars off the use of Rockland. Finally, after being stonewalled time and again by White’s Ferry, Rockland had no choice but to file suit on December 2, 2009. After many attempts to settle the case out of court which delayed the trial by years, the suit was decided in Rockland’s favor on November 23rd, 2020. The court definitively ruled that the owners of White’s Ferry had been and are trespassing and are no longer able to make use of Rockland without Rockland’s permission.
Since that decision over four weeks ago, Rockland Farm has made numerous attempts to reach White’s Ferry in order to negotiate a fair and equitable solution that will keep the ferry running. Rockland has offered to purchase White’s ferry, to be paid rent for its land, and to consider other arrangements that will keep the ferry running. On multiple occasions, White’s Ferry told Rockland Farm that it would get back to Rockland on certain dates, but missed their own deadlines. Multiple attempts to reach White’s Ferry have gone unanswered. All the while White’s Ferry continued, unjustly and now in violation of a court ruling, to make money off of the use of Rockland.
Rockland Farm knows that it is in everyone’s best interest to keep the ferry running and sent White’s Ferry an interim licensing agreement so that the ferry operation could continue without interruption until a deal between the two parties could be negotiated. Rockland Farm received no response from White’s Ferry. Having not gotten a response from White’s Ferry, Rockland Farm wrote to them last Wednesday letting them know that if Rockland did not hear back from them by noon on Monday, it would send a final notice of entry of Order to the court. Instead of engaging with Rockland Farm to negotiate a fair and equitable arrangement to keep the ferry running, the response by White’s Ferry was to close the ferry and walk away from the business.



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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Adding to the fun, it appears that the man who owned the Ferry since the mid 1940’s died earlier this year. Can’t have helped the relationship. Good luck to the wedding venue collecting its $100K from what is now a defunct operation with no revenue stream. Greedy people on both sides.

Wow, and the plaintiff - Betsey J.S. Brown - died last year. So this case was decided after both of the main parties died. The land has been in the family for over 200 years!

Her obit: https://www.loudounfuneralchapel.com/obituaries/Betsey-Brown/#!/Obituary

The family who have owned Rockland literally invented the money market fund: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_B._R._Brown

This was the husband of the plaintiff. Yeah, they are probably gonna buy the ferry and close it down.

Woah....and the son (and presumably current heir of the Rockland Trust) is the CEO of Renaissance Technologies (!!!!)

https://www.geni.com/people/Peter-Brown/6000000077988737711

Jesus h christ, this is serious huge money. The ferry is over.

Interesting, if they are so wealthy I wonder if this is about the money, or perhaps they just want the ferry gone?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Adding to the fun, it appears that the man who owned the Ferry since the mid 1940’s died earlier this year. Can’t have helped the relationship. Good luck to the wedding venue collecting its $100K from what is now a defunct operation with no revenue stream. Greedy people on both sides.

Wow, and the plaintiff - Betsey J.S. Brown - died last year. So this case was decided after both of the main parties died. The land has been in the family for over 200 years!

Her obit: https://www.loudounfuneralchapel.com/obituaries/Betsey-Brown/#!/Obituary

The family who have owned Rockland literally invented the money market fund: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_B._R._Brown

This was the husband of the plaintiff. Yeah, they are probably gonna buy the ferry and close it down.

Woah....and the son (and presumably current heir of the Rockland Trust) is the CEO of Renaissance Technologies (!!!!)

https://www.geni.com/people/Peter-Brown/6000000077988737711

Jesus h christ, this is serious huge money. The ferry is over.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rockland getting eviscerated on social. Hopefully they get the message and reverse course. Would be too bad if this was the generation that got greedy and lost the property.

I don't know if we can call them greedy at this point. Surely they want to be paid fairly, and have expenses of their own.

The original landowner - A.T.M. Rust - was compensated $17 for the condemned land in 1871 ($367 in 2019 dollars). This was before the plaintiff's heirs bought the land.

So the ownership claim remained, but the condemned land could be used for only the purposes of the Ferry.

This is really a documentation problem for White's Ferry. There is no authoritative map in the 1871 Condemnation order than pinpoints the condemned land. But the owner of the land at that time clearly knew where the condemned land was located and allowed the ferry depot & road to be built.

In short, the plaintiff's are taking advantage of a lack of conclusive documentation to kick the Ferry off the strip of land (despite the fact that the land cannot be used for anything but the Ferry!)

Yes this. I just don't understand why only the defendant has to prove that the 1871 was the same land they use today. It seems the opposite should be true and the plaintiff should have to find evidence to the contrary.

And why the argument over where the state road ends? I mean who has been paving it for all of these years? I live off a private road. My neighbors and I have to pay for repaving. Why doesn't the state know where it ends.

Because Virginia law requires the non-owner/trespasser to prove that they are on the right piece of land in which their is an easement/adverse possession. The onus is not on the land owner under VA law.

But white's ferry is much older and came first. They've been on the land the longest.

I think if the land were sold now, white's ferry would have purchased a portion, but back then you didn't need to own land to operate a ferry.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rockland getting eviscerated on social. Hopefully they get the message and reverse course. Would be too bad if this was the generation that got greedy and lost the property.

I don't know if we can call them greedy at this point. Surely they want to be paid fairly, and have expenses of their own.

The original landowner - A.T.M. Rust - was compensated $17 for the condemned land in 1871 ($367 in 2019 dollars). This was before the plaintiff's heirs bought the land.

So the ownership claim remained, but the condemned land could be used for only the purposes of the Ferry.

This is really a documentation problem for White's Ferry. There is no authoritative map in the 1871 Condemnation order than pinpoints the condemned land. But the owner of the land at that time clearly knew where the condemned land was located and allowed the ferry depot & road to be built.

In short, the plaintiff's are taking advantage of a lack of conclusive documentation to kick the Ferry off the strip of land (despite the fact that the land cannot be used for anything but the Ferry!)

Yes this. I just don't understand why only the defendant has to prove that the 1871 was the same land they use today. It seems the opposite should be true and the plaintiff should have to find evidence to the contrary.

And why the argument over where the state road ends? I mean who has been paving it for all of these years? I live off a private road. My neighbors and I have to pay for repaving. Why doesn't the state know where it ends.

Because Virginia law requires the non-owner/trespasser to prove that they are on the right piece of land in which their is an easement/adverse possession. The onus is not on the land owner under VA law.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Adding to the fun, it appears that the man who owned the Ferry since the mid 1940’s died earlier this year. Can’t have helped the relationship. Good luck to the wedding venue collecting its $100K from what is now a defunct operation with no revenue stream. Greedy people on both sides.

Wow, and the plaintiff - Betsey J.S. Brown - died last year. So this case was decided after both of the main parties died. The land has been in the family for over 200 years!

Her obit: https://www.loudounfuneralchapel.com/obituaries/Betsey-Brown/#!/Obituary

The family who have owned Rockland literally invented the money market fund: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_B._R._Brown

This was the husband of the plaintiff. Yeah, they are probably gonna buy the ferry and close it down.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rockland getting eviscerated on social. Hopefully they get the message and reverse course. Would be too bad if this was the generation that got greedy and lost the property.

I don't know if we can call them greedy at this point. Surely they want to be paid fairly, and have expenses of their own.

The original landowner - A.T.M. Rust - was compensated $17 for the condemned land in 1871 ($367 in 2019 dollars). This was before the plaintiff's heirs bought the land.

So the ownership claim remained, but the condemned land could be used for only the purposes of the Ferry.

This is really a documentation problem for White's Ferry. There is no authoritative map in the 1871 Condemnation order than pinpoints the condemned land. But the owner of the land at that time clearly knew where the condemned land was located and allowed the ferry depot & road to be built.

In short, the plaintiff's are taking advantage of a lack of conclusive documentation to kick the Ferry off the strip of land (despite the fact that the land cannot be used for anything but the Ferry!)

Yes this. I just don't understand why only the defendant has to prove that the 1871 was the same land they use today. It seems the opposite should be true and the plaintiff should have to find evidence to the contrary.

And why the argument over where the state road ends? I mean who has been paving it for all of these years? I live off a private road. My neighbors and I have to pay for repaving. Why doesn't the state know where it ends.

Anonymous wrote:All of this hullabaloo over a mode of transportation that's two centuries obsolete.

We need more and better bridges between Maryland and Virginia.

Neither here nor there.

All of this hullabaloo over a mode of transportation that's two centuries obsolete.

We need more and better bridges between Maryland and Virginia.

Anonymous wrote:Virginia being Virginia, they have a history of pulling their "land" out of longstanding agreements. Right Alexandria?

Oh, if only history were as simple as your mind...

Anonymous wrote:Adding to the fun, it appears that the man who owned the Ferry since the mid 1940’s died earlier this year. Can’t have helped the relationship. Good luck to the wedding venue collecting its $100K from what is now a defunct operation with no revenue stream. Greedy people on both sides.

Wow, and the plaintiff - Betsey J.S. Brown - died last year. So this case was decided after both of the main parties died. The land has been in the family for over 200 years!

Her obit: https://www.loudounfuneralchapel.com/obituaries/Betsey-Brown/#!/Obituary

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is this not a historical easement? It's been in use for over two centuries.

Not when it's between two private companies.

I'm from a different state originally where shoreline can't be privately owned. Does Rockland really own all the way to the water? There's no public easement? I live on the potomac too and thought that there was.

Maryland owns all the river and up to the Virginia shoreline, particularly in that upper portion of the Potomac. In VA, land owners can own up to the waterline. This is why you won't see personal docks on the VA side of the upper Potomac- you need permission from MD to build.

MD's rights to the shoreline get more varied as you go south of DC. You'll see a proliferation of docks in areas where VA owns the water.

This is no longer correct. Docks are subject to permitting in the jurisdictions from which they originate. In other words, Virginia jurisdictions permit docks on the Va. side and Maryland jurisdictions permit docks on the Md. side.

Yes, Maryland "owns" the Potomac River up to the low-water mark on the Virginia side. However, this is practically meaningless. The Supreme Court has upheld that Virginia has full riparian ownership of the Potomac River waters without regulation from Maryland.

Adding to the fun, it appears that the man who owned the Ferry since the mid 1940’s died earlier this year. Can’t have helped the relationship. Good luck to the wedding venue collecting its $100K from what is now a defunct operation with no revenue stream. Greedy people on both sides.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rockland getting eviscerated on social. Hopefully they get the message and reverse course. Would be too bad if this was the generation that got greedy and lost the property.

I don't know if we can call them greedy at this point. Surely they want to be paid fairly, and have expenses of their own.

The original landowner - A.T.M. Rust - was compensated $17 for the condemned land in 1871 ($367 in 2019 dollars). This was before the plaintiff's heirs bought the land.

So the ownership claim remained, but the condemned land could be used for only the purposes of the Ferry.

This is really a documentation problem for White's Ferry. There is no authoritative map in the 1871 Condemnation order than pinpoints the condemned land. But the owner of the land at that time clearly knew where the condemned land was located and allowed the ferry depot & road to be built.

In short, the plaintiff's are taking advantage of a lack of conclusive documentation to kick the Ferry off the strip of land (despite the fact that the land cannot be used for anything but the Ferry!)

Anonymous wrote:Rockland getting eviscerated on social. Hopefully they get the message and reverse course. Would be too bad if this was the generation that got greedy and lost the property.

I don't know if we can call them greedy at this point. Surely they want to be paid fairly, and have expenses of their own.