A Civil War battlefield and civil rights cornerstone nearly met its demise, with talks of selling the 99-acre Murphy Farm, in Harpers Ferry, W.Va., to a housing developer.
Instead, the Trust for Public Land, a preservation group, has agreed to purchase the property, thus saving Murphy Farm from becoming Murphy's Landing and the site of 188 houses.
The Murphy Farm announcement was the first of two victories in the area in a continuing battle for public land preservation in an era of development.
Just days after the announcement of the impending sale came news that another trust, the Civil War Preservation Trust, had reached an agreement to purchase School House Ridge, a stretch of farmland along U.S. 340 that is considered the most significant Civil War battlefield in the state.
Last week's announcements brought renewed hope to historians and civil rights proponents, and signified a further addition to public lands.
"This is significant battlefield land that put Harpers Ferry National Historic Park on the Endangered Battlefield designation for the country for the past several years," said Marsha Starkey, public information officer for Harpers Ferry National Historic Park. "Hopefully, these purchases and possible boundary expansion for the park will allow us to preserve the site, interpret the site for our visitors and have added green space in the county."
The Murphy Farm overlooks the Shenandoah River and has been a working farm since Alexander Murphy acquired the property in 1869. It, along with School House Ridge, is to be conveyed to the National Park Service, which runs the adjacent Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.
At the tip of West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle, the farm was the site of the 1862 Battle of Harpers Ferry. There, Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson captured 12,500 Union soldiers - marking the greatest capitulation of federal troops until the fall of the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines at the outset of World War II.
School House Ridge historians claim the end of slavery in America began with Stonewall Jackson's arrival.
"So, there was tremendous action, tremendous engagement here, with remarkably little loss of life or casualty. But surrender was the important part ... and put the dominoes into place for Antietam to happen and then [in response] the early Emancipation Proclamation to be issued by Lincoln. So, it's kind of like the domino effect. And Harpers Ferry had to happen first for the others to fall in line," Starkey said.
Confederate occupation at School House Ridge was the key to Jackson's 1862 siege of the picturesque town at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers.
The Civil War Preservation Trust began raising money in April to save School House Ridge, collecting more than $1 million to date. In 1995, the trust preserved 56 acres across from School House Ridge. Trust officials see the completed acquisition as a first step to preserving the Confederate line.
From 1895 to 1910, Murphy Farm was the relocation site for the fort used by fiery abolitionist John Brown in 1859 in his attempt to seize the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry to provide arms for a planned slave uprising. Brown was captured by Union troops and hanged by Virginia authorities.
The fort had been moved to Chicago for the 1893 Columbian Exposition, but was brought back to Harpers Ferry by Kate Field, a newspaper reporter.
In 1895, Murphy deeded 5 acres for the fort to be rebuilt on his farm.
In 1906, W.E.B. Du Bois and other members of the Niagara Movement's conference made a barefoot pilgrimage to the restored fort, in homage to Brown's struggles and his early efforts to promote civil rights and equality.
The Niagara Movement later became the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
The significance of the properties fueled a recent battle over future use of the land when developers considered the location for housing - a development that would have resulted in the discharge of 70,000 gallons per day of treated sewage into Alstad's Run, a tributary of the Shenandoah River.
In response, civil rights activists and environmentalists joined together to challenge the proposed Murphy's Landing development, suing the Jefferson County Planning Commission and pressuring environmental regulators to halt the plans.
The Harpers Ferry Conservancy also sued the planning commission, alleging the subdivision would destroy the sanctity of the rural landscape.
Instead, the land will be preserved, serving as a historic landmark. It is a coup that has many singing praise, including the present owners of the farm.
"This is a dream that every generation of the Murphy family has shared," Murphy Farm heirs Josephine Murphy-Curtis and Karen Dixon Fuller said in a joint statement.
"We're extremely gratified that the National Park Service recognizes the farm's significance to both Civil War and civil rights history, and that by working with the Trust for Public Land, the property will finally be added to the park," they said.
Kweisi Mfume, president of the NAACP, has referred to Murphy Farm as "freedom fighters' land," also applauding the Trust for Public Land for preserving the nation's heritage.
Nationwide, the Trust for Public Land has helped protect more than 1.4 million acres as parks, community gardens, urban playgrounds and wilderness.
The selling price for Murphy Farm has not been disclosed but could be released after closing, according to trust officials. Meanwhile, the Civil War Preservation Trust anticipates it will raise from private and public contributions the $1.7 million to purchase School House Ridge by year's end.