MY FAMILY has lived in Stafford
She has seen State Route 610 go from two lanes to the monstrosity it is now. She has seen the open fields that we picked flowers in turned into shopping centers. Knowing my interest in Civil War site preservation, she asked if Stafford County was doing anything to help preserve any of the sites that are being bulldozed every day.
Guess what? The county has nothing that requires a builder or developer to identify historic sites. When a site is destroyed and built over and this is brought to the developer's attention, most often the reply is that they did not know any site was there.
With all the resources available to the county and the public in the form of courthouse records, local history books, and documentation at the public library, I find this hard to believe. Some developers voluntarily bring an archaeologist in to walk the property (at $20,000 a project) but most do not because of the cost.
Local metal-detecting groups and individuals have offered, for free, to document the sites and remove relics for preservation, but they have been called looters and grave robbers and run off with the threat of prosecution. It is total disrespect to call people who have lived here their entire lives and respect the memory of the people who lived and died here in the past "grave robbers."
Do the county supervisors and their "archaeologists" prefer that our history be buried by the bulldozers? Well, money talks and, sadly, it looks like Stafford County believes it can make more money from building new subdivisions than it can from preservation of its disappearing historic sites. It's easier to accept the developer's archaeologist's report that says "nothing's there" and "let's tear up the ground now."
I prefer to document what my boyfriend finds while he's out "ticking" and looking at the displays and remembering the brave soldiers who died in this county.
D.P. Newton, of the White Oak Civil War Museum, has a petition for residents of the area concerned about our history. It asks that Stafford County, if unable (or unwilling) to save a historic site, require the builder or developer to erect a permanent historic stone marker, which will serve as an "everlasting tribute to the history of what was here but now is gone." This petition is open to all residents of the United States, not just of Stafford County.
So far only one builder has promised--but not in writing--to put a marker up.
I urge all to visit the museum. There is a wealth of information in maps of the area, with many local family cemeteries and old homesites marked. There are relics there from both Union and Confederate camps as well as from residents of Stafford County and other localities. Mr. Newton's museum shows what the local people who metal detect find and preserve.
Don't wait until it is all gone, and we have nothing to show of our history. Stafford County supervisors need to realize that there is a new crop of voters out there, ones who believe in preservation of the past and will vote to make sure it happens.
DEBBI SHELTON lives in Stafford County.