November 15, 2024
Mark Williams/Natural Lands
Crebilly Farm, a 308-acre property in Westtown Township, Chester County, will be permanently preserved as a public park. The land played a role in the Battle of Brandywine, a pivotal clash in the Revolutionary War. The preservation effort to protect the farm from development took years to complete.
A yearslong effort to save Chester County's Crebilly Farm — the site of a skirmish during the largest battle of the American Revolution — culminated earlier this month with a deal to protect the 308-acre property from future development by turning it into a public park.
The picturesque landscape in Westtown Township, about 4 miles south of West Chester, sits at the junction of Routes 202 and 926 in an area that played a role in the pivotal Battle of Brandywine in September 1777. The farm, one of the last open spaces left in the township, became a rallying point for Chester County residents in 2017 when developer Toll Brothers announced plans to purchase and subdivide the property for a 317-unit residential community.
Historians who have studied maps and contemporaneous accounts of the Battle of Brandywine say shots likely were exchanged between American troops and Hessian soldiers — the German mercenaries aligned with the British — as they crossed the Crebilly property before a larger battle at Sandy Hollow, about 2 miles south.
"It is a piece of property that has spoken to people in a way that doesn't often happen," said Oliver Bass, president of the region's oldest conservation nonprofit, Natural Lands, which played a key role in the farm's preservation. "There's something intangible about that, something very hard to capture and describe. Sometimes landscapes just connect with us. They root us in a place, give us a sense of what it is to be at home."
The arduous process to conserve Crebilly Farm was championed by public officials in Westtown Township and grassroots organizers with Crebilly Farm Friends. The most recent owners of the property, David and Laurie Robinson, had expressed interest in having the land preserved after Toll Brothers, facing growing community opposition, abandoned its development plans in 2021.
Last year, Natural Lands purchased secured conservation easements for one-third of the property to be purchased from the Robinsons for about $4.5 million. The deal greatly restricts future construction on that portion of the farm.
But it was a much heavier lift to secure another $20 million for the township to acquire the remaining 206 acres of the property. In addition to federal and state grants, Westtown Township residents voted in 2022 to approve an open space referendum that increased their local taxes to raise about $7.5 million for the preservation of Crebilly Farm. In a township with about 11,000 residents, the measure was approved with nearly 68% of the vote. The turnout of roughly 6,200 people was the largest in the township's history.
"This was literally grassroots to the nth degree," Richard Pomerantz, who serves on Westtown's board of commissioners, said of the initiative he helped lead with support from several hundred volunteers.
This year, during a two-month fundraising blitz, more than 770 households within 10 miles of the farm also made private donations that were matched by the Mt. Cuba Center — a botanical garden in Delaware — and another anonymous donor. The sale of the remaining land was approved at the beginning of November, and the deal is expected to close next month.
The passage of the referendum and the success of the fundraiser are testaments to the "magical" quality of Crebilly Farm, Bass said, because Natural Lands and other advocates previously had hoped to leverage the property's historical significance to get more federal support.
At the Battle of Brandywine, although the Americans suffered defeat, their tenacious spirit in the 14-hour conflict set the stage for General George Washington's retreat to Valley Forge in the winter of 1777. The encampment is widely considered the turning point in the Continental Army's quest to bolster its military prowess and win American independence.
The American Battlefield Trust, a nonprofit that has helped protect more than 1,000 acres of Pennsylvania's historic battlefields, once opposed the Toll Brothers project and urged Westtown Township to protect the farm. About 6 miles south, the Brandywine Battlefield Historic Site covers about 6,100 acres near Chadds Ford. Sandy Hollow Heritage Park, which offers a stunning view of Crebilly Farm from high ground, also was protected as a 42-acre preserve near one of the most intense battlegrounds at the Birmingham Friends Meetinghouse. A garden with a stone marker sits at the Quaker site to commemorate a common grave for American and British soldiers.
"People in Chester County tend to be pretty aware of the Brandywine Battlefield area," Bass said. "Where it came up most strongly in this process was that Crebilly is outside the current federal definition of the battlefield area. Chester County has done the research that demonstrates that it really should be included in that definition."
Expanding the the battlefield area would require congressional action, a step that failed to garner enough traction on a timeline that worked for the purchase of Crebilly Farm. Bass called the open space referendum a "critical first step" toward pulling together the funds for the township to buy the rest of the land. Raising local taxes isn't a conventionally popular move, but it has become a valuable tool for preservation efforts. Two other Chester County communities, East Whiteland and Uwchlan townships, passed similar ballot measures to set aside land conservation money earlier this month.
"I think the essence of conservation, wanting to protect open space, generally and historically has always enjoyed bipartisan support," Todd Sampsell, vice president of conservation services at Natural Lands, said during an interview earlier this year. "Land conservation really started as a Republican conservative thing, and then the environmental movement came in as kind of a left or liberal thing. But really, I would say both political sides can come together around this need to have open space, clean air and clean water — all those things that nature provides."
In a statement, the Robinson family said they were "humbled by the incredible community support" that will now ensure the preservation of Crebilly Farm. Bass credited them for their patience as supporters navigated pulling together different funding sources. Sampsell noted that it's rare for things to play out the way they did.
"If you're up against a short timeframe or competing with development pressures, conservation often doesn't win," he said.
In the months and years ahead, Westtown Township will transition Crebilly Farm into a passive-use recreational park with walking trails. Pomerantz said the township plans to undertake a master planning process that will include public participation. The township envisions the land as a place for families to visit and appreciate the natural beauty around them.
"It's extraordinary," said Pomerantz, who visited the property Thursday. "The thing that hits you about it is it's as beautiful as any several hundred-acre area that I've ever seen anywhere in the world. It just happens to be in Westtown."
In the future, if the township is able to obtain grant funding, it may be possible to conduct a thorough survey of the land to search for battlefield artifacts that would help sharpen the historical record of the property. The township's master planning process could explore how the property's history will be honored, but Pomerantz and others who have been involved in the acquisition said it's premature to say what might be done.
"I think that's something that would come at a later stage," Bass said.
