Five years later the hunting activities of Leesburg, at least, took on a more domestic hue. The inhabitants of the little town were busy in building up the reputation of a famous Virginia delicacy but apparently were rather overdoing it. "It is represented" reads an act of 1772 "that a great number of hogs are raised and suffered to go at large in the town of Leesburg, in the county of Loudoun to the great prejudice of the inhabitants thereof;" so the act forbade owners from allowing such liberties to their porkers and permitted any person to "kill and destroy such swine so running at large."[95]
That Francis Aubrey established the first ferry from Loudoun's shore across the Potomac prior to 1741 has been noted in Chapter IV. It was at the Point of Rocks and was inherited by Thomas Aubrey, son of its founder, who obtained a license for its operation in 1769. By 1775 the travel was very light at that point and complaint was made of inadequate equipment. In 1834 it, with the surrounding land on the Loudoun side, was in the possession of Rebecca Johnson and in 1837 in that of Margaret Graham. The construction of the Point of Rocks bridge by the Potomac Bridge Company in 1847 ended its usefulness.
A second ferry, also across the Potomac and heretofore recorded, became far more famous than that of the Aubreys. When Philip Noland acquired land on that river where travel over the old Carolina Road had, from time immemorial, crossed it, he had the most valuable and frequented ferry-site in the neighborhood. He had sought, but unsuccessfully, a ferry license as early as 1748; in 1756, with or without a license, he was operating his ferry. Its operation was eventually authorized by the Legislature in 1778 to the land of Arthur Nelson in the State of Maryland. No other ferry from Loudoun's shores acquired the fame that did Noland's. At the height of its activities the travel at that point is said to have supported a country store, a blacksmith's shop, a wagon shop, a tailor and a shoemaker. The coming of the railroads and the construction of the Point of Rocks Bridge together were responsible for its ultimate abandonment. We have a suggestive glimpse of conditions there. In May, 1780, the Moravian emissary John Frederick Reichel, in the course of his ministrations to those of his faith in America, undertook a journey from Bethlehem in Pennsylvania down the Carolina Road to the present Winston-Salem in North Carolina. One of his companions kept a journal from which we learn that upon successfully crossing into Virginia at Noland's Ferry, Bishop Reichel and his company "made camp near Mr. Th. Noland's house close to the road which turns to the right from the Foart road towards Noland's Ferry which crosses the Patomoak two miles from here. So far our journey had been very pleasant. Now, however, the Virginia air brought storms." While the weary travelers were resting that night from their journey, some of Noland's negroes left their "Quarters" and proceeded to lay their hands on the strangers' equipment. The diarist on the next day indignantly records the following "Note. Mr. Th. Noland and his father and father in law have 200 negroes in this neighbourhood on both sides of the Potomoack and this neighbourhood is far-famed for robbery and theft." On their return the travellers found that Mr. Noland had busied himself in recapturing much of the loot and duly returned the articles to their rightful owners.[96]