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Nature of the 'Nest' Reports cite Stafford peninsula's assets

July 30, 2006 5:19 am

By RUSTY DENNEN

NOW THAT Stafford County aims to acquire a good chunk of the Crow's Nest peninsula through eminent domain, what would it get for its trouble?

The swath of forest and marsh between Potomac and Accokeek creeks has often been described as an environmental jewel, with connections to important historical events.

What's really out there is detailed in two studies documenting ecological and historic resources at Crow's Nest.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service released an environmental assessment of the peninsula in 2000 as part of an unsuccessful effort to create a 7,480-acre national wildlife refuge. The refuge would have included Crow's Nest and several thousand surrounding acres.

That study identified rare plant and animal species, noting that over the years landowners for the most part have been passive caretakers because much of the property is carved by deep ravines.

Greg Weiler, manager of the Potomac River National Wildlife Refuge Complex in Woodbridge who worked on the report, said earlier this week that the attention showered on Crow's Nest by local, state and federal interests illustrates just how important the land is.

"I was very disappointed when the service was unable to follow through and acquire the property," he said. At one point the tract was No. 1 on the agency's property-acquisition wish list for the region.

The peninsula is important for several reasons, he said. "One is the size and acreage. Where else in Northern Virginia are you going to find a 3,000-acre chunk of land that's available?"

"And you have a mix of habitats, from upland hardwoods to marsh and the creeks. It's not just one monoblock, and with each, there's significant acreage." He notes that there are no structures, paved roads or urban contamination issues common with other large tracts of land in the region.

In an analysis of vegetation and habitat, the report says the forest blanketing most of the land is unusual.

Though it's unknown how much of the original forest remains, trees over 4 feet in diameter are not uncommon.

"Virtually the entire Crow's Nest peninsula is forested with a mature stand of mixed hardwoods that is considered one of the finest, if not the finest, example remaining in the coastal plain."

Two sections of forest are listed as globally imperiled. Those are located on several slopes and ridges.

"One is dominated by tulip poplar, with a dense understory of silvery glade fern," the report says. Another has chinquapin oak, black walnut, slippery elm and redbud, with pawpaw, small-flowered baby blue-eyes, Dutchman's breeches, toothworts, maidenhair fern and sedge goldenrod underneath.

A rare oak-hickory forest covers two steep slopes facing Potomac Creek.

"Records and pictures from the Civil War period documented the clearing of hills facing Potomac Creek for fuel, firewood and to facilitate transport of materials," the report says.

Parts of the property were extensively logged in decades past. For example, Montross Lumber Co. selectively logged the peninsula from 1948 to 1953, the Fish & Wildlife report said.

Biologists estimate that the 700 acres of tidal marsh surrounding Crow's Nest account for 60 percent of the marshland in Stafford. According to the report, "The marshes are in pristine conditions and represent some of the best examples found in the state."

Rare plants found on the property include showy orchid, Adam and Eve plants, black snakeroot, cut-leaf toothwort, common alum root, pubescent sedge and silvery glade fern.

And Crow's Nest may be home to two federally threatened plant species that have been found on land nearby: sensitive joint-vetch and small whorled pogonia.

Ginseng, on Virginia's list of threatened species, was found in several ravines on the peninsula, as was bulrush, found in a tidal section along Potomac Creek.

Bald eagles, threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act, and on Virginia's threatened species list, nest on the property.

A 70-acre parcel adjacent to Crow's Nest is one of the largest heron rookeries in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. It sustains more than 600 nests.

"Although the rookery is protected" by the Northern Virginia Conservation Trust, "the protection of additional habitat is critical in sustaining the colony," the report says.

The Fish & Wildlife Service says the land would support breeding populations of Canada geese, mallards, black ducks, blue-winged teal and wood ducks.

The freshwater marshes "are highly valuable spawning and nursery habitats for many species of economically important sport and commercial fish, including striped bass, alewife, blueback herring, white perch, hickory shad and yellow perch."

The report notes, "Because of its steep topography, the peninsula has largely been excluded from the logging, farming and developmental pressures that have altered the surrounding areas." It addresses land use over the millennia, from the time of American Indians to modern days.

K&M Properties Inc. of McLean is the latest owner, with about 3,800 acres. The company's Stafford Lakes Limited Partnership wants to build 688 homes on all but about 600 acres.

The Stafford Board of Supervisors, which has been trying to purchase the property for several years, in June voted to go to court to condemn 2,887 acres for public use. That process could take a year or more to complete.

In May, the county offered to buy the land for $30.5 million. That's about $3.5 million more than a private appraisal estimated the land was worth on the open market.

A company representative has said Crow's Nest is worth closer to $60 million and that its own appraisal is in the works.

About $20 million toward the purchase is available from state grants and a state loan program. So it appears Stafford will have to come up with at least $10 million, and possibly much more, depending upon how much the court decides the property is worth.

Clark Leming, a Stafford attorney who represents K&M, said the most important ecological and cultural resources on Crow's Nest lie on property along the water, away from where any development would be focused.

He said 1,600 acres was offered to the county to set aside, as part of the company's preliminary subdivision plan. Leming says another local development firm has contracted to buy the entire tract for an undisclosed price.

Weiler, of the Fish & Wildlife Service, says the ultimate environmental value of Crow's Nest will be proportional to its size when all is said and done.

"The property is significant enough that you should try and save whatever you could. And that should be more in a block than, say, a long strip.

"If you cut it in half, you've saved some but the more you cut, it destroys the integrity of the peninsula."

Crow's Nest had a role in American Indian, Colonial and Civil War history.

When English explorer Capt. John Smith sailed up the Potomac in 1608, Patawomeck Indians had their main village on nearby Indian Point.

Crow's Nest was probably too steep for the Patawomecks to have lived on the land, through they probably hunted and camped there. In one area, a large number of unfinished stone points were found, indicating that Indians once used the property as a stone-tool-making workshop.

Col. Gerard Fowke was the first recorded owner, in the early 17th century. Then in 1662, Rawleigh Travers received a patent for 3,650 acres and started a tobacco plantation. Crow's Nest is named after the Crow, a black sailing ship harbored there that transported tobacco and other commodities.

Travers' grandson Travers Daniel, and Daniel's wife, Frances Moncure, later built a large brick manor house on a ridge overlooking Potomac Creek. The family owned the property for the next 200 years. Notables who lived on the property included Hannah Ball, aunt of George Washington, and Mildred Stone, whose father signed the Declaration of Independence.

Cultural Resources Inc., a Fredericksburg consulting firm, did a resource survey on part of the property last year for Stafford Lakes Limited Partnership.

It reported an 1805 Mutual Assurance policy map of Crow's Nest Plantation describing a one-story wood structure on a brick foundation and cellar with two one-story wings, a porch and cellar entrance. It was a big house--60 by 26 feet with the additions. It was valued at $1,400.

The plantation was confiscated by the Union army in 1862 to serve as a lookout over the two creeks and the Potomac River, and the house and outbuildings were reportedly burned.

During the early years of the war, the Union army camped nearby at Belle Plains, which in 1864 became a holding area for thousands of Confederate prisoners captured after the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House battles.

Between 1905 and 1989, Crow's Nest changed hands more than a dozen times.

The only evidence of human occupation that remains is a brick pile marking the location of the manor house, and what's left of the Daniel family cemetery.

Nature has reclaimed the property, its history now shrouded by huge oak trees, the sounds of plantation life and Civil War bugles replaced by the squawk of blue herons.

To reach RUSTY DENNEN:540/374-5431
Email: rdennen@freelancestar.com