Save 50 Acres at Tom’s Brook

Despite winter storms and colder temperatures than we’ve had in the Valley in recent memory, we’re as busy as we’ve ever been working to preserve every acre of battlefield we possibly can. To that end, we’re kicking off 2025 with an opportunity to save 50 acres on the Tom’s Brook Battlefield!

This $2.8 million property, where Lunsford Lomax’s Confederate horseman desperately fought to hold against the overwhelming wave of Wesley Merritt’s Federal Cavalry Division, was slated by the owners for development. The current plat for the property shows plans that include 122 single family homes, 4 new residential streets, 2 cul-de-sacs and several water retention ponds. The water and sewer service required to begin the development project was ready and available. But, the owners of the property, lifelong residents of the Valley who truly value the Valley’s history and scenic beauty, wanted to try one last time to find a way that they could afford to preserve this 50-acre tract rather than develop it. They had approached us years ago before they moved forward with their development plans, and at that time we were overwhelmed with other projects and didn’t have the capacity to tackle this one as well.

As luck would have it, their project was delayed for various reasons and, over time, we wrapped up some older projects and increased our capacity to take on more. They reached back out to us to ask if there was any way that we might be interested in purchasing the property before they broke ground. After several rounds of discussions, they graciously agreed to donate $700,000 of the property value. This donation started the ball rolling toward a project that we could tackle. The owners were even willing to finance the purchase for us, giving us the time to raise the remaining funds needed. But they needed to clear their bank note before we could move forward, which would require a $350,000 down payment from us.

That might have been a deal breaker. Without $350,000 of available cash this project had reached another impasse. That is until Al Boxley, a longtime friend and a member of our Board of Trustees, stepped forward to break the deadlock. Al and I rode to Tom’s Brook for a tour of the property and to look at its proximity to the hundreds of other acres we have protected on that battlefield. As we were getting back to the car, Al took out his checkbook and wrote out checks to cover the $350,000 down payment that we needed to get this project off the ground! The Boxleys took the extreme step of lending us $300k and making the unbelievably generous gift of another $50,000! Grant funds from the state and federal battlefield programs, when combined with the Boxley gift and the donation from the owners, will get us almost all the way there.

All that’s left for us to pull together is the last $48,000! This last bit of funding will push us over the finish line, covering closing costs, legal and administrative expenses, application fees, and the costs of the surveys and appraisals. $48,000 is all that stands between us and extinguishing 122 building lots and preserving this battlefield parcel for all time. Think about that for a second; that’s less than $1,000 an acre!

This is a fantastic opportunity to save a critical battlefield property before it’s too late. We thought this property was lost, that the opportunity to preserve this part of the Tom’s Brook Battlefield had passed. We’ve been given one last chance, and we have hero donors that have stepped forward and major grants that will take us most of the way there. But with all that, it’s still going to take you and me to finish this thing. Please join the fight at Tom’s Brook and make a gift to save these 50 acres of hallowed ground. The men that rode with Merritt and Lomax were willing to die for this land; now the question is, what are we willing to do to save it . . .

View across the Target Property