From the Piedmont View, PEC's membership newsletter

James Madison was "the best farmer in the world," according to Thomas Jefferson, as reported by John Quincy Adams. The principal author of the Constitution took a detailed, scientific interest in the farming of Montpelier, his estate in Orange County. Appalled by the toll that intensive tobacco farming took on Virginia's soils, Madison practiced crop diversity, contour plowing, stream buffers and crop rotation. 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-since a prosperous and self-sufficient farming community requires forests to provide timber, prevent soil runoff, absorb precipitation and harbor wildlife, among other services. "Madison was a conservationist even then," says Michael Quinn, President of the Montpelier Foundation. "He wrote about the rapid deforestation that he saw taking place in Virginia and that it was important to preserve forests."

Madison personally directed that the woods behind his and Dolley's home at Montpelier should not be cut. Today, vast pillars of oaks, tulip poplars and hickories stand among more youthful trunks. Because this tract is sheltered within an expansive forest, a visitor among the centuries-old trees can listen, undisturbed, to the steady thrum of insects, a thrush's call, or a woodpecker's percussive clamor. Known as the James Madison Landmark Forest, this area is considered the best remaining example of old growth forest in the southeastern United States.

Madison's act of setting aside his forest demonstrates what a valuable gift conservation land can prove, generations later. Now, another 700 acres of land at Montpelier are to be protected, through a partnership between PEC, the Montpelier Foundation and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. These protected lands will buffer the old growth forest and safeguard extraordinary historic resources, including the first freedman's home in the U.S. to be restored and opened to the public and the remains of Civil War encampments where thousands of soldiers lived during the winter of 1863-64.

When complete, this conservation project will expand the protected area within the 2,700-acre Montpelier property that currently includes the 200-acre, old-growth James Madison Landmark Forest and the 800-acre "historic core" of the property.

A major grant from the Virginia Land Conservation Fund, combined with private donations as matching funds, is making it possible for PEC to purchase four easements from the Montpelier Foundation and the National Trust, which jointly manage the property. This arrangement will ensure lasting protection for the land while providing the Montpelier Foundation and the National Trust (both private non-profits) with capital that they can invest to support their core mission. The easements will be co-held by PEC, the Virginia Outdoors Foundation and (in two cases) the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.

"It's an honor to help conserve a place that includes such a unique biotic community and that enhances the lives of so many people," says John Moore, PEC's Conservation Officer for Orange County. "When you spend time at Montpelier, it's hard not grow in your understanding of how the nation came to be."

Conservation easements on these four almost entirely forested tracts will:

• Protect historic resources including the Freedman's Farm and Civil War camp sites
• Provide authentic context for Montpelier and other historic sites
• Protect areas for future archaeological research
• Preserve 700 acres of the Madison-Barbour Rural Historic District
• Assure public access to historic resources and recreational trails
• Buffer the old-growth James Madison Landmark Forest
• Protect water quality by preserving 700 acres of forested land along tributaries to the Rapidan River, which provides public water supplies for the Town and County of Orange and the City of Fredericksburg

While Montpelier's old growth forest and the nearby woods, which eventually will become old growth themselves, tell a story of thoughtful stewardship, other land to be protected at Montpelier tells a story of freedom as it emerged against a backdrop of slavery and war.

In the woods across the road from the Madisons' mansion, straight rows of slight mounds beside depressions in the earth recall a military order. As the weather grew cold in 1863, thousands of soldiers built earthen platforms on which to prop the huts they built for 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 lived at the camp for months, struggling against illness and boredom during a seasonal pause in the war's push southward after Gettysburg. "This is the last place many of them lived before they wound up at Wilderness," says Tom Chapman, Research Coordinator for The Montpelier Foundation.

Afterwards, residents reused the lumber that soldiers had cut from the forest. Archaeological evidence suggests 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, was a seamstress.

In recent years, the Montpelier Foundation has restored the cabin to its 1870's condition and opened it to the public. Quinn sees the cabin as a witness to Madison's legacy in the Constitution which, through its amendments, fulfills the Revolutionary vision of freedom for all. "Madison created the Constitution as a document that could evolve, and he based it on the ideals of the Revolution," Quinn says. "He viewed it as a major advance in self-government, but he knew that it was imperfect... Madison was anticipating changes and improvements to the Constitution."

In a transitional time that many newly freed people and other Americans found chaotic, Gilmore seems to have done well. Chapman says, "He was able to own his own land, build his own house and generally enjoy his freedom."