Supervisors should protect history

Date published: 8/25/2004

On Aug. 10, 2004, the Spotsylvania County Board of Supervisors heard from the public concerning whether to remove acreage on State Route 3 west from the county's Primary Settlement District.

No vote was taken that night, so the issue remains unresolved. The Spotsylvania Preservation Foundation spoke in favor of removing the property, and we continue to encourage the board to correct this earlier error.

The acreage in question includes the approximately 800-acre Mullins Farm. We believe that it should never have been placed in the Primary Settlement District. In fact, we opposed the Mullins Farm rezoning in 1999, and we opposed the expansion of the primary growth area farther west as part of the 2002 Comprehensive Plan revision.

The Route 3 west path toward the Chancellorsville and Wilderness battlefields needs to be protected as it contains an important county, state, and national resource: namely, the Chancellorsville Battlefield Historic District.

The incorporation of Route 3 and adjoining parcels into the county's growth-planning district was a failure to recognize this area's historic significance as well as its importance to county residents and its potential for tourism.

We in the preservation community continue to look to the Spotsylvania supervisors as representatives of all the county's residents. We hope they will act in the general interest of the county and remove this property from the Primary Settlement District.

Such action would eliminate one more obstacle to the protection of this hallowed battleground, the site of strategically critical fighting on May 1, 1863, during the Battle of Chancellorsville.

Helen H. Springer

Spotsylvania

Helen H. Springer is president of the Spotsylvania Preservation Foundation Inc.

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Date published: 8/25/2004