Hooe’s ferry, running from Mathias Point in Virginia to lower Cedar Point in Maryland, was established in 1715 by Col. Rice Hooe (Hoe, Howe), grandson of Rice (Rhuys) Hooe, a seventeenth-century immigrant from Wales. At Colonel Hooe’s death (1726), the ferry was inherited and run by his son John (1704–1766), and following John’s death by John’s widow, Ann Alexander Hooe, and their son Gerard Hooe (1733–1786), who married Sarah Barnes (1742–1815) and lived at the family home of Barnsfield in Mathias Neck, Stafford County (HENING description begins William Waller Hening, ed. The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, from the First Session of the Legislature, in the Year 1619. 13 vols. 1819–23. Reprint. Charlottesville, Va., 1969. description ends , 4:93; Va. Gaz., R, 24 Mar. 1768; NICKLIN [1], 368).

From Hooe’s ferry, GW probably retraced his steps home but entered no expense in his ledger for recrossing the Potomac to reach Mount Vernon.