University of Virginia Library

Part Two: The Continuing Saga Of A Green Springs Tragedy

By BILL BARDENWERPER

(Green Springs is the
proposed site of a state prison
which has been the subject of
controversy throughout Louisa
County and the state. The
following is a follow-up survey
which for the first time
includes the views and opinions
of both sides in the most hotly
debated issue in the county
since the Civil War. - Ed.)

Three years and $3 million
ago Green Springs would have
passed for the setting of a
Grimm's fairy tale. However,
Green Springs has since
become a fighting word, at
least to the citizens of Louisa
County.

For three years, Green
Springs residents and the
county have debated the fate
of this historic area. But it now
falls to Governor Linwood A.
Holton to write the conclusion
to this long story of conflict
and confusion.

CD/Jim Brunetti

Earl Ogg, Chairman Of Louisa County Board Of Supervisors

Gov. Holton declared on
October 10 that the state
would drop its plans for the
proposed penal institution in
the Green Springs area if the
residents give the state
"positive assurance within a
reasonable time that the
historically critical area of
Green Springs will be
preserved."

Nevertheless, the state has
again demonstrated its intent
to proceed with preliminary
steps by last week asking the
State Water Control Board for
permission to construct sewage
treatment facility at the Green
Springs site.

While some sort of decision
appears imminent within the
next few days, the entire issue
is still and probably will
forever remain clouded by
emotion and largely devoid of
fact.

The governor's Oct. 10
remarks implied that easements
under the state Open Space
Land Act of 1966 are one way
for the residents of the Green
Springs community to assure
historic preservation. Basically,
easements only deprive a
person of the right to ruin his
own land But to insure this,
easements under law are to be
made to some sort of public
body, such as the Department
of the Interior, the Department
of Housing and Urban
Development, America the
Beautiful or the Virginia
Historic Landmarks
Commission.

Said Mrs. Hiram B. Ely,
spokesman for the Green
Springs Association, of the
governor's proposal, "Gov.
Holton didn't have any vague
idea of what he was saying. To
be made a total jackass of is not a
comfortable feeling."

"The people of this area
have for a long time been
interested in scenic easements,
but are not too happy with this
'gun to the head approach'.
Therefore we are not going to
do it simply because the
governor tells us to," she
added.

Nonetheless, the Green
Springs Association is presently
in the process of drawing up
these easements.

But what seems like a not
too unreasonable demand by
the governor has presented the
Green Springs Association with
a rather formidable task.

"Two thousand acres should
not be difficult," says Mrs. Ely.
"Even up to three thousand is
not unreasonable." When Mr.
Holton spoke of historic
preservation of the
ten-thousand acre Green
Springs area, however, what
figure he had in mind is
unclear. It is entirely plausible
that anything under 100 per

cent of the land in easements
would not be suitable to the
state.

In reference to the easement
matter, Louisa County Board
of Supervisors Chairman Earl
Ogg said, "I don't think they'll
get enough because people
don't want to give up their
rights to do with their property
as they please. Thus we're
going ahead with the idea that
the prison will be built at
Green Springs."

The area in concern is a
picturesque basin of rolling
farmlands located twenty miles
east of Charlottesville in Louisa
County. Green Springs
residents profess a concern,
however that the prison will
have an adverse effect on the
two and a half centuries of
architectural development
here; some of the structures
date back to the
mid-eighteenth century.

Of the more than 85 historic
buildings, five are included on
the National Register of
Historic American Places and
twenty-three are listed on the
American Building Survey in
the Library of Congress.

The Green Springs
Association also expresses a
fear, as does Frederick Hartt,
chairman of the University's
Department of Art, that the
prison facility will attract
"hamburger joints and pizza
parlors for visitors to the
prison."

Yet the Louisa County
Board of Supervisors remain
determined to place the prison
at Green Springs, despite these
environmental objections. Mrs.
Ely had this explanation for
their determination: "We have
challenged the power structure
of Louisa County, and that just
isn't done.

However, Mr. Ogg explained
that "even the people of the
Green Springs district are not
united in their opposition to
the prison being constructed
there. Quaker Hill, Sylvania
and Peers House (three farms
in the Green Springs area) are
all one hundred per cent for
the prison, so what right does
Mrs. Ely have to say 'we may
never prevent it, but we'll hold
it up in the courts so long that
they'll never get the prison
built?'"

"The facts have been wholly
distorted," said Louisa County
Executive, Dean Agee. "This is
a medical diagnostic center, the
cream of the entire crop. This
facility is for the first-time
felons who stay for a
maximum of six to eight weeks
and are then transferred
elsewhere to spend their time."

"Furthermore," continued
Mr. Agee, "there is no search
light, gun tower or siren in the
sense that has been implied."
Surveillance is only over the 27
acres upon which the prison is
built, he added, and contrary
to all rumors, the prison could
not be seen from the entire
surrounding countryside.

"These institutions have to
be placed somewhere,"
concluded Mr. Agee. "And it
won't help the small farmer by
forcing him off his land and
paying him only three to four
hundred dollars an acre for it.
This facility hasn't caused
anyone to relocate."

"People from Louisa must
commute to Charlottesville,
Richmond and Washington
every day," Mr. Ogg said.

"The prison will provide
over a hundred jobs with a
$1.5 million payroll so that
Louisa residents won't have to
leave the county to find a job.
And this is good for the people
of Louisa."

CD/Andy Groher

Hawkwood: Romantic Tuscan Villa In A Parklike Setting

Mr. Ogg added that the
prison facility will attract
professional staff which he
believes the county
"desperately needs." "Our
hospital faces the threat of
being shut down," Mr. Ogg
claimed. "We have only three
doctors in the entire county,
and one is 84 years old. But in
building the prison, the state
has promised to encourage its
staff to open practices in
Louisa County, since their work
at the prison will be only
part-time."

"Never had we heard all this
history before this
controversy arose. In fact,
three years ago, Boswell's
Tavern was the only building
listed on the National Register
of Historic American Places.
Why, there's just as much
history in the place where I
live."

The first black elected to the
state legislature lived at this
farm following the Civil War,
according to Mr. Ogg. "Now
that's history, Afro American
history," he continued. "But
they (the Green Springs
Association) place me just
outside the Green Springs
district."

One perturbed county
resident even asserted that the
majority of the landowners in
Green Springs "are not as
concerned with historic
preservation as they are with
their own economic
well-being." "The facts seem to
bear this out," added Mr. Ogg.

Seven farms in the Green
Springs area, totaling 3250
acres, have signed contracts to
allow test drilling for
vermiculite, a mineral used in
producing insulation materials.

"One can only assume from
this that they too would sell
out should they be offered the
proper price, in this case to
permit vermiculite mining,"
Mr. Ogg said.

"They're not concerned
with historic preservation. If
they are, why are they so
unwilling to put their property
into easements?" another irate
citizen asked.

"The Elys at Hawkwood
rent all their land," contended
Mr. Ogg. "And the Kimballs at
Green Springs plantation have
only a few horses on their
property."

"These people have been
here only a few years while I've
lived here all my life," he
continued. "They don't care
about the people of Louisa
County and what's good for
them, they only care about
themselves."

Mr. Ogg summed up
the Board's position in
saying, "Every unfair tactic in
the world has been used to
keep the structure from going
up in Green Springs. I even
heard that there was an
attempt to bribe the man who
was hired to drill a well on the
prison site. And never have
people come before us with the
language they used."

It is nearly impossible to
discover where the truth
actually lies. And a number of
questions still remain
unanswered.

Mr. Ogg said that his
overwhelming victory in the
election for the Chairman of
the Board of Supervisors was a
vote of confidence in his
position on the Green Springs
issue. Yet Mrs. Ely claims that
his victory margin was only
fifty votes and that the issue
was "beer on Sunday." County
residents seem to place no
significance on the election at
all.

Environmental implications
are also a subject of heated
debate. The University of
Illinois submitted an
environmental report which
was commissioned yet
subsequently suppressed by the
Law Enforcement Assistance
Administration, an agency of
the U.S. Department of
Justice, because it
recommended that the LEAA
not fund the project.

The Illinois impact report
concludes that the
environmental impact of the
prison facility with respect to
its form and scale may have
"very serious consequences"
on the "character and historic
legacy of the local setting."

Mr. Ogg and Mr. Agee
claimed, however, that the
State Department of Welfare
and Institutions and the Law
Enforcement Assistance
Administration both published
similar reports with the same
findings advocating the Green
Springs site.

Another area of controversy
involves the original land sale.

Two hundred acres of land were
sold to the state by Richard
Purcell on February 22, 1971
for $160,000. Yet Green
Springs residents contend that
Purcell's brother, Judge Harold
Purcell, a former state senator
and present Circuit Court
Judge, may have used his
influence in the land purchase
deal, a "special favor" which
resulted in a handsome
$85,000 profit.

Otis Brown, then director of
the State Board of Welfare and
Institutions, stated that the
Purcell tract was chosen over
49 alternate sites.

It also appears that the state
not only turned down an
option on a free tract of
land offered by a Col. Waldrop
but also has continually
shunned similar offers.

According to Mr. Agee, the
county is proceeding on the
assumption that the prison will
be constructed at Green
Springs. Mrs. Ely though,
believes that the state has
already selected an alternative
site but will not prematurely
discuss it in order not to arouse
the residents of that area. She
contends that the Green
Springs Association has taken
no position with regard to a
future site in Louisa County.

No perfect site exists
anywhere which is compatible
with all the arguments
discussed here.

But while better alternatives
are available, the state of
Virginia continues in its
insistence to keep the prison
facility at Green Springs. And
due to construction delays the
state proceeds to lose money in
cost increases. Governor
oton estimated that
construction costs have already
risen $370,000.

The Virginia taxpayer
emerges as the real loser. The
state previously turned down
$3 million in federal funds in
order to keep the issue out of
federal courts and to bar any
further delays.

Thus, while the state still has
not yet begun any initial
construction it has cost the
Virginia taxpayer $3,550,000.

The Green Springs
Association has, in the past,
offered the state $80,000 for
the Purcell tract. Should the
state find a suitable alternative
site the taxpayer would stand
to regain $3,080,000 of the
amount he has already lost.

Virginia desperately needs
expanded penal facilities.
Newly received inmates, those
for which the Louisa County
facility is proposed, are
presently housed in a cell
basement with unsuitable living
conditions in the half-century
old Richmond prison.

The Green Springs
Association contends that the
historical and environmental
implications involved in the
Green Springs site are well
documented. The Board of
Supervisors believe that
possible economic benefits to
the County should be the
overriding concern.

Should a new site for the
institution other than Green
Springs be found within Louisa
County everyone will stand to
gain: the Virginia taxpayer,
citizens of Louisa County,
Green Springs residents, the
Commonwealth of Virginia,
and, of course, Governor
Holton, whose future in state
politics partially hinge o the
notorious Green Springs
incident.

The story of Green Springs
is not a fairy tale. Rather it is a
tragedy which has pitted
neighbor against neighbor and
has caused a rift among the
residents of this otherwise
peaceful community.

For this reason alone a
prison should not be built at
Green Springs.