A 1,000-acre tract of land along Salmon Creek in Bertie County might one day become a state park.
The Coastal Land Trust cobbled together a series of grants and took out its first-ever loan to purchase the property. Lee Leidy, an attorney for the preservation group, said the land has extraordinary ecological properties, including a farm, timber forest, and a hardwood swamp.
“The best way to see this property is to go three-and-a-half miles up Salmon Creek seeing these gorgeous and enormous, ancient Cyprus trees,” Leidy said. “You know the property is just exceptional.”
Leidy said archeologists have also found artifacts from Algonquian and 16th Century English colonists. The latter might have settled there after leaving the so-called Lost Colony of Roanoke.
Leidy said she likes to call the property 'the whole package.'
“It not only had exceptional ecological value, it but it had incredible historical and cultural values as well,” she said. “And, collectively, you know those values made it so extraordinary that the property was basically a historical time capsule.”
The Coastal Land Trust intents to finish closing on the property this year, then transfer ownership to the North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation.