FreeLists / bristol-birds / [Bristol-Birds] Burke's Garden easement protects forest

["Wallace Coffey" <jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx>]

By TIM THORNTON, The Associated Press 
Dec 20, 2006 9:18 AM (31 days ago)


ROANOKE, Va. - Saving 100 acres and a popular hostel for Appalachian Trail 
hikers is impressive.



Preserving more than two miles of Claytor Lake shoreline is an achievement.

But the agreement that restricts logging and development in one-fifth of Burkes 
Garden - 4,363 acres - is the largest conservation easement the Virginia 
Outdoors Foundation has ever held.

Two of those conservation easements were filed this week. The Burkes Garden 
easement was filed Nov. 30. They move the state closer toward the goal Gov. 
Timothy M. Kaine announced earlier this year of protecting 400,000 acres from 
development before his term ends in 2010.

That's 70,000 acres more than the commonwealth has protected since 1968.

In 14 of the 37 years the state's land preservation program has existed, the 
statewide total for land placed under conservation easements was smaller than 
this single Burkes Garden agreement.

Burkes Garden is a bowl-shaped valley that got its name from James Burke, a 
member of the first English survey team to visit what is now Tazewell County in 
1748. Burke dropped some potato peels while preparing a meal. When he came back 
through a year later, he found a crop of potatoes on the spot.

Locals say representatives of the Vanderbilt family came through trying to buy 
land for a castle. The Burkes Gardeners wouldn't sell, so the Vanderbilts built 
Biltmore near Asheville, N.C., instead.

"It's a fantastic place," said William Wasserman, an easement specialist with 
the outdoors foundation.

The property is owned by the Moore family and has been leased to farmers for 
years.

The easement stretches from the floor of Burkes Garden to the crest of Garden 
Mountain. It holds caves, 30-odd acres of wetlands and borders the Beartown 
Wilderness Area for more than four miles. It restricts logging and won't allow 
more than 30 houses. It bans commercial development.

The property covered by the easement has been listed on the Virginia Landmark's 
Register and the National Register of Historic places, as part of the Burke's 
Garden Rural Historic District since 1986.

Visible from two Virginia Scenic Byways and the Appalachian Trail, the land 
covered by the easement will provide a buffer for a spruce forest that's rare 
this far south.

"It's kind of left over from before the last ice age," Wasserman said.

The trees growing on Giles County's Woods Hole, location of another of the 
easements filed this week, aren't that old. But some of the red oaks have been 
there for more than a century, long enough to grow 100 feet tall and 3 feet 
around.

Tillie Wood and her husband, Roy, came to the property in the early 1940s, when 
Roy was a graduate student studying a nearby elk herd. Looking for a place to 
rent, they were shown a nice, solid brick cottage and a falling-down cabin with 
no electricity.

"They were young and it was picturesque, so they took the cabin," said Mary Jo 
Osteen, the Woods' daughter.

After a year in the woods, they had a chance to buy the place. So they did. A 
cabin and 100 acres for $300.

Woods Hole almost left the family twice. Once, when Roy Wood was becoming 
assistant secretary of the interior in President Jimmy Carter's administration, 
the investigators looking into his private life told Wood he had a conflict of 
interest. He owned land next to a national forest.

"His answer," Tillie Wood said, "was, 'No. They own land next to me. I was 
there first.' "

The Woods kept their cabin and woods.

Years later, the couple thought about donating it to the state. When their 
granddaughters found out, they cried. That was the end of the donation.

The family still holds reunions there - more than 20 relatives were at Wood's 
Hole last summer - but they let other people enjoy the place too.

Just a half-mile from the Appalachian Trial, Tillie Wood has run a hostel for 
AT hikers for the past 21 summers. For two months each year, she provides 
hikers with a bed in the bunkhouse. She cooks breakfast for the first eight 
people to sign up.

She made an exception at least once, when a hiker tried to frighten off a bear 
by throwing food at the animal. The hiker, who earned the nickname Bearbait, 
came into Woods Hole without any food, without a tent and with a big hunger. 
Tillie Wood let him have a place at the breakfast table.

Wood, past 80 years old, is about to turn the hostel tradition over to her 
29-year-old granddaughter, Neville Harris.

Another matriarch, 91-year-old Mary Ingles Barton Bullard, was behind the third 
easement, a deal that covered the largest privately owned tract on Claytor Lake.

"It was my mother's decision," Laura Bullard said. "She was born there on the 
farm. She grew up there on the farm."

Mary Bullard, great-great-great granddaughter of Mary Draper Ingles, wrote in 
the easement application, "It would give me great satisfaction to know it would 
be preserved as the farm and forestland we inherited and have worked hard to 
maintain. It is our heritage and our privilege to be good stewards of this 
beautiful land."

Her family has been stewards to this particular land since 1808.

Once a farm of 3,000 acres, it dwindled as heirs in succeeding generations took 
their shares. Then Interstate 81 paved a bit. Claytor Lake drowned a bit. Now 
the last 447 acres are protected.

The easement allows constructing up to 10 houses, but most of the land is 
restricted to agricultural use of one sort or another.

"The land must remain essentially open and undeveloped," Laura Bullard said. 
"We saw all the development going up around us. We felt like this place 
deserved to stay as beautiful as it is."

The family had talked about protecting their land for years, Laura Bullard 
said. Hearing what happened to Luther Nolley, a Montgomery County dairy farmer, 
convinced them to go ahead with the easement.

Nolley wanted to put his 610-acre farm under a conservation easement.

He worked out the details with the Virginia Outdoors Foundation, restricting 
the number of houses that could be built, designating some of it for 
agricultural use, leaving most of it open for wildlife. Days before he was 
supposed to sign the agreement, Nolley died.

His farm was sold at auction in October, cut into 13 tracts, and sold to nine 
different bidders.

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Information from: The Roanoke Times, http://www.roanoketimes.com

Wallace Coffey
Bristol, TN