Editor’s note: This story was originally published at 3:04 p.m. on April 11, 2025. It was updated at 10:31 a.m. on April, 14, 2025, to inlude a statement from JK Land Holdings.
Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich is offering a $3 million subsidy to the owners of the properties on the Maryland and Virginia shores of the Potomac River as an incentive to reopen the historic White’s Ferry in Poolesville that closed in December 2020, according to a letter sent to the owners Friday.
“The demise of the White’s Ferry was not caused by natural disaster, lack of patronage, or some other external factor,” Elrich wrote in the letter. “Rather, the ferry stopped due to litigation and the inability of two private parties to work in good faith to establish a reasonable business arrangement so that this vital service could be sustained.”
The ferry, which transported commuters across the river between Poolesville and Leesburg in Loudoun County, Virginia, was established in 1786. According to a Friday press release from Elrich’s office, the ferry carried an estimated 600 to 800 vehicles across the river daily until its closure.
According to a 2021 White’s Ferry Operations Study by the Montgomery County Department of Transportation (MCDOT) and the Loudoun County Department of Transportation and Capital Infrastructure, re-opening the crossing will have an estimated economic impact of more than $9 million annually.
“With each passing year, the connections between the communities served by the ferry have weakened, local businesses have suffered, family connections have been strained, and thousands of additional miles of travel have been required by those who need to travel between eastern Loudoun County, Virginia and western Montgomery County,” Elrich wrote.
In December 2020, the ferry ceased operation after nearly 250 years due to a legal dispute between then-ferry owner Herb Brown and Rockland Farm in Virginia, which owns the Virginia landing site.
The 2020 court case, Rockland Farm LLC, et. al. v. White’s Ferry Inc., established that “no public landing exists on the Virginia shoreline at White’s Ferry Road and the ferry is prohibited from landing at that location in Virginia.” With no public landing, White’s Ferry had to negotiate with Rockland Farm, which wanted to charge a toll for every car that drove on its land in order to use the ferry.
Chuck Kuhn, CEO of JK Land Holdings, and his wife, Stacy, own the ferry and the Maryland shoreline of the operation, which includes the store and café White’s Ferry Grill. The Kuhns purchased the ferry and the Maryland landing site in February 2021 from Brown with the hopes of quickly reopening the ferry. Rockland Farm is owned and managed by Libby Devlin, according to the letter.
Elrich’s letter offered the subsidy to the two parties to “incentivize a compromise.”
“After years of fruitless effort, I have concluded that the only way the ferry can restart is through your action. I implore you to look past the fraught history of this disagreement and take action to restore this vital service,” Elrich wrote. “The two of you, and likely only the two of you, can end this impasse that has so deeply harmed communities in both Maryland and Virginia.”
Elrich is recommending the expenditure of the funds as a new project in the county’s Capital Improvements Program (CIP), according to the letter. The subsidy includes $1.5 million in state aid recommended by Gov. Wes Moore (D) and approved by the Maryland General Assembly in the state’s fiscal year 2026 budget. Elrich is matching the state funds with $1.5 million from the county and Town of Poolesville funds. The funding is contingent on County Council approval.
If the funding is approved by the County Council, Elrich has stipulated that the two private owners must come to an agreement by July 1, 2026, to receive the funds. Elrich also offered the support of MCDOT in the reopening until July 1, 2026. The funds may be used for property rights, equipment purchase or other capital investment needed for the ferry.
The county and state governments have no authority over the land since it is privately owned, and cannot force the two landowners to come to an agreement.
Devlin told Bethesda Today in an email Friday afternoon that she’s interested in providing ferry service.
“I’ve been in talks with Montgomery County for some time now regarding reopening a ferry. I’m willing to continue discussions with them and the Maryland owner if he is also willing,” Devlin said. “However, in our meeting this morning with Montgomery County, Mr. Kuhn refused any further discussion.”
In a statement, JK Land Holdings said that the company wants to work to restore the ferry and crossing.
“In terms of the county executive’s unexpected and unsolicited $3 million proposal, JKLH has never asked for or expected any funds from the taxpayers of Montgomery County. At this point, JKLH is reviewing the proposal, and speaking again with Montgomery County and Loudoun County officials and Rockland Farm,” the statement said. “Despite this major setback, JKLH remains committed to finding a resolution that will get the crossing open as soon as possible, but the hurdles are now much higher as zoning regulations on the Virginia side have recently changed.”
Councilmember Marilyn Balcombe (D-Dist. 2), who represents the area where the ferry is located, said she hopes there will be a resolution soon.
“The opening of White’s Ferry is critical for Montgomery County, particularly for the Poolesville area. The County has been working towards a plan for reopening the Ferry for more than four years,” Balcombe told Bethesda Today in an email Friday afternoon. “This ‘best offer’ is a culmination of the County, the State, and the Town of Poolesville working together to get this vital resource up and running.”
In April 2024, Kuhn offered to donate the ferry to the county government to ease the reopening process. However, Kuhn’s proposal stipulated that his donation did not include the land, also under his ownership, that would be required to access and operate the ferry, according to Friday’s press release. Elrich did not accept the offer, noting that “the compensation requested for the land use drove the cost significantly higher than would be feasible for Montgomery County taxpayers to shoulder.”
In Friday’s statement, JK Land Holdings said that the company was “very surprised and disappointed” that the county did not accept the donation.
“The whole goal in offering to donate the operation to Montgomery County last April was to get it open in the most expeditious manner possible,” the statement said. “In fact, that was the goal when JKLH and the Kuhn family originally purchased the defunct ferry in 2021. They recognize that this special crossing serves as an important local economic engine and piece of history.:
In 2020, Rockland Farm posted on Facebook that it sued White’s Ferry as a “last resort” after the companies couldn’t come to an agreement over the ferry’s use of the Rockland property.
“White’s Ferry took the position that it did not need to pay to use Rockland’s land to operate its private business,” the farm posted.
Negotiations between the parties have failed multiple times over the last few years, including in March 2023 when Chuck Kuhn announced that his joint $1.1 million bid for the Virginia landing site—a bid “well above” the land value, he alleged—was rejected by the owners of Rockland Farm.
“The reason that we turned down the $1.1 million combined offer from Loudoun County, Montgomery County and Mr. Kuhn is that Rockland Farm will not accept a flat fee for its Virginia landing,” Devlin wrote to Bethesda Today at the time. “We favor a volume-based fee that varies with the amount of traffic encroaching upon our land and will work with either county to accomplish that.”
She added that Rockland Farm previously made an offer to Montgomery and Loudoun counties for a permanent easement on the Virginia landing in exchange for a volume-based fee.
