Membership
Event 2005 at Mount Airy
September 11 marked a celebration of the first
anniversary of the Northern Neck Land
Conservancy (NNLC). The Boots and Barbeque
Picnic was celebrated at Mt. Airy, the lovely
ancestral home of the Tayloes of Warsaw. On a
golden afternoon, almost 400 people strolled the
grounds of Mt. Airy, bird watched with Sandy
Spencer of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
and consulted with representatives of the
Virginia Outdoors Foundation, the Farm Museum,
The Nature Conservancy, the Middle Peninsula
Land Trust, the Wildlife Refuge, the Audubon
Society and the Northern Neck Land Conservancy.
Lee Stephens of Irvington, co-chair of the event
with Tayloe Emery, introduced Mary Louisa
Pollard, President of the NNLC, who welcomed the
assembled supporters of the NNLC. She spoke on
the exciting first year of the NNLC including
the organization’s help in preserving over 749
acres of land.
Ms. Pollard said "There are another 100
acres in the works for preservation later in the
year," and "NNLC will be coholding a
conservation easement with the Virginia Outdoors
Foundation on another 465 acres in the Northern
Neck."
Pollard also paid tribute
to Catherine Chilton, who donated the first State
Forest in the Northern Neck. She thanked Mrs.
Chilton, who saw to it that a 400 acre tract in
upper Lancaster became a State Forest. Mrs. Chilton
also has donated an Easement, both Conservation
and Historic, in the Historic District of Lancaster
Courthouse, which will protect the land behind
the old jail. Pollard thanked the many members
of the Conservancy who have worked so hard to
get the organization rolling. She said the first
year focus was on education- "to spread the
word about what we have, and to understand those
special qualities that we could lose." "Our
home has been discovered, and it is incumbent
upon us to realize that those qualities of the
farms, forests and fishing that sustain the rural
nature of the Northern Neck are endangered."
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