More than a century earlier, his ancestors Rice Hooe had established plantations and a ferry across the Potomac River at the tip of the Northern Neck of Virginia in King George County.
[5] Complicating matters, this man's uncle John also had a son named Bernard Hooe (1770–1809), who inherited part of that Buckhall tract upon his father's death in 1798, and lived on that estate he called "Locust Grove".
Cousin Bernard Hooe actually won political office first, a special election in 1809 after former state senator Richard Brent (for neighboring Fairfax and Prince William counties) became U.S.
Senator, but never assumed the office, having died in October 1809, of a gunshot wound from a Maryland duel with James Kempe (which caused the Virginia General Assembly to increase penalties for the previously outlawed practice).
He continued as a city councilor until 1821 and was active in the movement to have Alexandria retroceded from the District of Columbia (although Elizabeth would die a widow in Prince William County in 1831).
[15][16] In March 1840, Bernard Hooe and fellow attorney Henry M. Thomas defended four "negroes" charged in Fairfax County with rebellion and insurrection for beating John Ashford; two of the accused prisoners were convicted and sentenced to hang; the other two were acquitted.
[19] By this time, his cousin John Hooe had become one of Prince William County's largest landowners, using enslaved labor at his plantations including Mayfield, which would become a key fortification protecting the Manassas Junction Railroad in the Civil War.
A more distant relative, Dr. Abram Hooe of King George County, would receive a Presidential pardon for his Confederate service in 1866.