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Conservancy Announces Rockefeller Bequest

DURHAM, NC, October 19, 2004 –– The Nature Conservancy announced today that it will receive the historic Long Valley Farm in Harnett and Cumberland Counties through the estate of James Stillman Rockefeller, who passed away in August at the age of 102. 

Mr. Rockefeller was the captain of the Yale University rowing team in the early 1920s, and helped the United States secure the gold medal in rowing at the 1924 Paris Olympics.  He was the oldest known Olympic gold medal winner.  The son of William G. Rockefeller and the great-nephew of Standard Oil founder John D. Rockefeller, James S. Rockefeller was president and chairman of National City Bank in New York, and sat on the board of the American Museum of Natural History.

Mr. Rockefeller had long expressed a wish to preserve Long Valley Farm’s bucolic mix of farm land, pasture and forest, and had discussed the 1,380 acre property with officials from the Conservancy’s North Carolina Chapter in recent years.

“The Nature Conservancy is very grateful to Mr. Rockefeller for his desire to see Long Valley Farm protected, and we are thrilled to play a role in its preservation,” said Fred Annand, associate director of the North Carolina Chapter.

Long Valley Farm, which is listed with the National Register of Historic Places, was originally established as part of the Overhills estate in the 1920s by Rockefeller’s uncle Percy, and has produced everything from cattle and tobacco to timber and turpentine.  Approximately 900 acres of Long Valley Farm is forested, with the remainder comprised of pasture and farm fields and a number of structures, including a large home used by Rockefeller.  The property is bisected by Jumping Run Creek, which flows into the Little River in Cumberland County.

The farm, which is bordered on two sides by Fort Bragg Military Reservation, is in the flight path of Pope Air Force Base, hence its protection will help protect public safety and military airlift operations.  The property will be permanently preserved as a natural area and will be managed by The Nature Conservancy or transferred to a suitable public agency.

When biologists from the Conservancy and the North Carolina Natural Heritage Program inventoried the property in 2002, they found a number of interesting natural areas, from healthy stands of longleaf pine to a cypress-gum swamp with canopy trees 100 feet tall and wet meadows that support a number of carnivorous plant species such as pitcher plants and sundews.  Long Valley Farm supports rare bird species as well: Bachmann’s sparrow and the loggerhead shrike have been observed on the property, as well as the federally listed red-cockaded woodpecker.  The Eastern fox squirrel is also present.

The Nature Conservancy is working on a management plan for the farm’s natural areas, and will use prescribed fire as a primary management tool to reinvigorate the property’s longleaf pine habitat, which thrives on periodic, low-intensity fire. “We are particularly excited about the longleaf at Long Valley Farm,” said Rick Studenmund, the North Carolina Chapter’s Sandhills project director.  “Some parts of the longleaf forest on the property have been recently burned and are in good ecological shape; other parts will need more work but still have strong restoration potential.”  Long Valley Farm will not be open to the public during the Conservancy’s planning and restoration phase.

The Nature Conservancy has been working to conserve longleaf pine habitat in the Sandhills,  “bridging the gap” between already protected lands at Fort Bragg, Camp Mackall and the Sandhills Game Land.  The North Carolina Chapter has protected several key tracts in the Sandhills to date, including the 2,500-acre Calloway Forest/NC Department of Transportation mitigation tract and the 1,182-acre Carvers Creek tract, both of which feature healthy longleaf pine communities in close proximity to Fort Bragg. 

In 2001, the Conservancy joined with the U.S. Army Environmental Center, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Sandhills Area Land Trust to establish the Conservation Center of the Sandhills, a joint project office in Southern Pines that is fostering the type of community-based, collaborative conservation that The Nature Conservancy relies upon to achieve lasting results.

“Given its shared border with Fort Bragg, Long Valley Farm is an excellent opportunity for us to enact lasting landscape conservation,” said Associate Director Annand.  “Mr. Rockefeller’s legacy will mean a lot not only to the natural communities the farm supports, but to all who care about our wild lands and waters.”

The Nature Conservancy has protected more than 574,000 acres of land in North Carolina and currently owns a network of 63 nature preserves in the state, many of which are open to the public for hiking, bird watching and paddling. The Conservancy’s mission is to preserve plants, animals and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive.

On the web at nature.org/northcarolina.

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