This article appeared in the Fall 2009 Piedmont View (pdf, 7MB).

Seven hundred and nineteen acres are newly protected at James Madison's Montpelier, through conservation easements purchased by PEC. These mostly wooded lands preserve the historic integrity of James and Dolley Madison's plantation home, buffer a rare tract of old growth forest, contain the remains of a major Civil War camp, and include the first freedman's home in the country to be restored and opened to the public.

Freedman's Farm at Montpelier

"The richness of the history is just phenomenal," says Michael Quinn, President of the Montpelier Foundation. "Here in this one location you've got the home of Madison, who was more responsible for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights than anyone else. It's a slave-run plantation[, so it represents that history]. And across the road, you've go the encampment of the Confederate army. That takes you to the Civil War. And part of that is the Freedman's Cabin, or the Gilmore Farm. Both the Civil War sites and the Gilmore Farm are really critical for American history because they represent our nation addressing the great failing of the Constitution, which was the failure to define citizenship... The Civil War and the freedman's period finally gave us the resolution."

PEC worked with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which owns the land, and the Montpelier Foundation, which manages it, to secure permanent protection of four tracts, totaling 719 acres. These lands expand a protected area within the 2,700 acre Montpelier property that also includes the 800-acre historic core and the 200 acre old-growth James Madison Landmark Forest.

PEC purchased the easements using a major grant from the Virginia Land Conservation Fund (obtained in 2007), in combination with ongoing, private fundraising. This conservation agreement ensures the permanent protection of these lands, preventing the possibility that future leadership at Montpelier might respond to financial pressure by allowing development on these tracts at the boundaries of its property. The easements are co-held by PEC, the Virginia Outdoors Foundation (on the East Woods and Chicken Mountain tracts) and the Virginia Department of Historic Resources (on the Civil War encampment and Freedman's Farm tracts). In addition to protecting natural and historic resources, the easements assure continued public access.

Heather Richards, Director of Land Conservation at PEC, says "The culmination of years of partnership between three non-profit organizations and two state agencies is these four remarkable easements. We hope that the National Trust's and Montpelier Foundation's obvious dedication to preserving rural Orange County will help spur other landowners in the area to consider conservation options for their property."

"The Best Farmer in the World"
This conservation agreement continues Madison's tradition of careful land stewardship. Madison, according to Thomas Jefferson, as reported by John Quincy Adams, was "the best farmer in the world." Mr. Quinn says, "Madison brought the same kind of intellectual thoughtfulness to farming as he did to his political work. He was very conscientious and very advanced in looking at things like crop rotation, soil amendments, erosion control and conservation of forests." In his retirement, the former President meticulously compared the merits of various manures and composts as fertilizer.

Madison was dismayed to witness the widespread clearing of Virginia's woods-reasoning that farmers required forests for timber and fuel and to maintain essential natural services. He wrote, "Of all the errors in our rural economy, none is so much to be regretted because none is so difficult to be repaired as the injudicious and excessive destruction of timber."

The protection of 700 acres of almost entirely forested lands at Montpelier will preserve views from the mansion and help to convey to visitors the world of James and Dolley Madison-in which they tended and relied on forests to supply their needs.

War and Freedom
Those woods shared in the history of America, dramatically played out at Montpelier. In the winter of 1863-64, the forests to the north of the house were inhabited by about 4,600 Confederate soldiers who felled trees to build crude shelters against the cold. In the woods today, straight rows of slight mounds beside depressions in the earth recall a military order. Here the soldiers built earthen platforms on which to prop the huts they lived in through the winter-rough wooden frames with a tent for a roof. They dug mud to seal the walls as best they could against the cold. The men at the camps against illness and boredom during a seasonal pause in the war's push southward after Gettysburg.

Tom Chapman, Research Coordinator for the Montpelier Foundation, says, "This is the last place many of them lived before they wound up at Wilderness"-the fierce battle in eastern Orange where 30,000 soldiers were killed, wounded or captured.

Afterward, residents reused the lumber that soldiers had cut from the forest. Archaeological evidence suggest that George Gilmore, who was born a slave at Montpelier while Madison was President, built his first home as a free man from these remnants. Later, between 1872 and 1873, Gilmore built the log cabin that still stands on the property. A skilled "jack of all trades," Gilmore may have worked as a miller, a carpenter and a farmer. His wife, Polly, with whom he raised a large family, worked as a streamstress.

In 2005, Montpelier opened the Gilmore cabin to the public-the only place in the United States where visitors can experience a restored freedman's home. While the dramatically restored Montpelier mansion and its preserved surroundings can help us to understand the principal author of the Constitution, Mr. Quinn says that the Civil War sites and Freedman's Farm help to illuminate the "next chapter" of the Constitution-the struggle over slavery, freedom and citizenship that the Founders deferred in order to create the Union.

Vast Trees
Madison, with his interest in preserving forests, directed that the woods behind his home should not be cut. Today his act of setting aside this forest demonstrates what a valuable gift conservation land can prove for later generations.

This area, known as the James Madison Landmark Forest, is recognized as one of the best examples of old growth forest in the southeastern United States-a rare reminder of our native woods' potential for vast trunks and high green crowns. While it is possible that some timber may have been felled in these woods, particularly during the tumult of the Civil War, many trees have clearly been growing here for centuries-huge pillars of oaks, hickories and tulip poplars. Because this old-growth tract is sheltered by expansive forests, a visitor in Montpelier's "big woods" can listen, undistracted, to the steady thrum of insects, a thrush's bell-like call, or a woodpecker's percussive clamor.

The conservation of over 700 additional wooded acres at Montpelier helps to ensure that this Landmark Forest will remain majestic and tranquil-as does widespread conservation in the neighborhood. Outside Montpelier, the Landmark Forest is bounded by another protected property-part of a block of privately held conservation land that extends across approximately 10,000 acres. In the Madison-Barbour Historic District, of which Montpelier is a part, 39% of the land is now protected by conservation easements.

Mr. Quinn says, "In this whole area, PEC has achieved a remarkable level of conservation. This contributes to that and hopefully, it adds to the momentum."