White's Ferry Offers is a Link to the Past

Short days, early dark, cool nights, homework, traffic, schedules, and relentless deadlines are bearing down on us, but wait; there’s still one week before school starts, and it is not a week to waste.

This is the time to ask the kids – if they are still able to suspend disbelief – if they want to ride bikes and go to Subway for lunch. When they say yes, put the bikes in the back of the SUV and drive four miles north of Leesburg on Route 15. Turn right on White’s Ferry Road. For $8 round trip, you can then take a ferry across the river, ride bikes on the C & O Canal, and have lunch in Poolesville.

Just be cool; don't mention the ferry until you get there. That will give the kids something to talk about on the first day of school, which is, OMG! NEXT MONDAY!

There’s been a Potomac River ferry -- once called Conrad’s Ferry -- between Virginia and Maryland since the early 1800s. In 1871, it was sold to a Virginian, Elijah V. White. From Virginia, the Ferry crosses the Potomac to intersect with the Chesapeake and Ohio (C & O) Canal at mile 35.5. It allowed 19^th century farmers to ship produce to market more quickly.  White named the ferry after Confederate Gen. Jubal Anderson Early, his former commander, and the name stuck.

Here is some history: As an officer in Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, Early created diversions to lure Union troops away from Petersburg, eventually penetrating all the way into Washington after first being repulsed at Ft. Stevens. After the war, Early was a diehard who refused to swear loyalty to the Union.

White’s Ferry, now owned and operated by Edwin Brown and Malcolm Brown of Dickerson, MD, is the only one left on the Potomac and the only river crossing between the Beltway/495 and the bridge at Point of Rocks in Frederick County, Md.

While you wait your turn to drive onto the ferry, you may see herons, fisherman, and happy people on the riverbank in Maryland. There is no parking on the Virginia side, but in Maryland, you can park and picnic under the trees for $5 a table.

This is a good place to fish, especially for smallmouth bass. A store on the Maryland side rents rowboats and canoes and sells bait. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources classifies the area from Seneca to the Mouth of the Monocacy River as "catch-and-release" for bass.

White’s Ferry is quaint, beautiful, inexpensive, and an unexpected way to ease out of summer and into the marathon of fall. The kids will love it, and you will be a hero for surprising them.

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