Manassas
Rick Smith
Prince William Times (Warrenton, VA)
Thursday, August 10, 2023
Park superintendent warns of data centers’ ‘wholesale destruction’ of historic areas around the Manassas battlefield
National Park Service’s concerns about the Prince William Digital Gateway detailed in letters to county officials
- By Shannon Clark Times Staff Writer
Warning of the “wholesale destruction” of historic landscapes related to major Civil War camps and troop burials, the new superintendent of Manassas National Battlefield Park has stated his strong concerns about the Prince William Digital Gateway, a plan to build 28 to 34 new data centers on 2,133 acres directly north of the national park.
In recent letters to Prince William County officials, Kristopher Butcher, the new superintendent of the Manassas National Battlefield Park, stopped short of expressing the park’s outright opposition to the proposed data center development but called for additional “research, analysis and mitigation efforts” to protect the area’s numerous historic resources.
“The current rezoning applications show that there will be a negative effect on the park and its resources, and we are advocating to mitigate that through a variety of methods,” Butcher said in an email to the Prince William Times.
Butcher’s concerns were expressed in letters addressing three rezoning applications associated with the PW Digital Gateway that were uploaded onto the county website on July 28. Manassas National Battlefield Park is one of several agencies that submitted comments on the rezoning plans, which are now in their third iteration.
Butcher is not the first battlefield superintendent to express concerns about the PW Digital Gateway. In December 2021, former battlefield superintendent Brandon Bies called the data center development "the single greatest threat" to the park in three decades. In February, then-acting superintendent James Bailey objected to the height of the data centers planned closest to the battlefield.
Butcher’s letter regarding PW Digital Gateway South, an area of about 340 acres directly adjacent to the battlefield, said the data centers planned in that area would impact the site of Camp Hardee, which was used by the Confederate Army in the fall and winter of 1861 and 1862. The camp was the site of a measles outbreak that led to the deaths of hundreds of soldiers.
“Many of these soldiers have been identified with names, approx(imate) date of death, and military unit information from the archival records, as well as oral histories provided by the property owners,” Butcher’s letter said. “It is clear that these soldiers were buried within the vicinity of the Pageland farm. There are likely hundreds of soldiers' graves within the project area or its immediate environs.”
Butcher further noted that the lack of the discovery of a “mass grave” somewhere near the farm does not mean the area does not contain soldiers’ remains.
“The potential grave locations of the soldiers of Camp Hardee ... would be buried not in a singular mass grave, but in a series of planned military burials,” Butcher wrote.
Due to the burials, Butcher’s letter requests that ground radar and other analysis be conducted on the land before the rezoning moves forward.
Pageland Farm was the subject of a recent debate about investigating the area for possible designation as a “county registered historic site.”
On July 25, the Prince William Board of County Supervisors voted against a request from the county's historical commission to consider the area for the designation. The 3-5 vote split along party lines with the board's Democratic majority voting in opposition. Several supervisors said they believed the request was driven by opponents of the PW Digital Gateway.
QTS, one of two data center developers seeking to build within the PW Digital Gateway, said its contractors have investigated the Pageland Lane corridor for historic resources and possible Civil War gravesites and have so far found no sign of human remains. Contractors have conducted more than 19,000 hand-dug “test pits,” according to a QTS spokesperson.
“To our knowledge, no evidence of human remains has been found, certainly none in recent history,” said Antonio J. Calabrese, a QTS attorney.
“Alleging that there are hundreds (or thousands) of bodies – with absolutely no documentation, no proof, and nothing credible other than ‘allegations’ – this is insufficient evidence for consideration by this responsible committee,” Calabrese said in a letter to the Prince William County Historical Commission.
Butcher’s letter further warned of the project’s negative impacts on agricultural outbuildings and Pageland II, a home built around 1855 for an overseer of the Marsteller family’s Pageland plantation.
The data center project would also contribute to the destruction of “enslaved cemeteries or dwellings” that have not yet been identified, Butcher’s letter said.
Butcher requested a full historic study of the Pageland II house as well as a cultural landscape report. A cultural landscape report describes the physical history, analyzes existing conditions and recommends actions to preserve, restore, or rehabilitate a landscape, Butcher said.
“Cultural landscapes are historically significant places that reveal human interaction with the physical environment over time,” Butcher said.
Butcher also wrote letters detailing the National Park Service’s concerns about the other two rezoning applications in the Pageland Lane corridor: PW Digital Gateway North and the application filed by H&H Capital Acquisitions, also known as Compass datacenters.
Butcher said the NPS has concerns with both projects because of their impact on African American historical sites, including the Thornton School and an African American settlement that included the family of Jennie Dean.
The Thornton School educated freed slaves. Dean was born into slavery but went on to found the Manassas Industrial School for Colored Youth, the first secondary school for African American students in Northern Virginia.
“The northern area of the PW Digital Gateway is a rare and vanishing resource that tells the story of the African American community and experience after the Civil War forging a new life in a reconstructing South,” Butcher said in his letter about PW Digital Gateway North, which is also being developed by QTS.
In response to the letters, Compass data centers said the company completed a “comprehensive archaeological survey,” which determined no buildings occupied or owned by historic African American communities remain standing in the area of the Thornton settlement, according to Chris Curtis, Compass’ senior vice president of development and acquisitions.
Curtis noted that Compass has offered to help the county build an interpretive site commemorating the Thornton School and settlement “so that residents and visitors can appreciate the property’s important contributions to the region’s history.”
Butcher said he wants Prince William County officials and residents to know the NPS is concerned that the proposed data center developments will destroy historic sites “not yet protected by the park” and “degrade the integrity of those preserved by the park.”
“As (the battlefield is) likely the final resting place of hundreds of soldiers, it is thus singularly important to the understanding of the war and the immense human cost it extracted from the county,” Butcher said in his letter.
Rick Smith
5264 N. Fort Yuma Trail
Tucson, AZ 85750
Email: rsmit...@comcast.net
Jerry Rogers
We should get up a betting pool about what date this controversy will first be described as the “Third Battle of Manassas,” of which there have been several. I helped Bill Mott start one of them.
Jerry
From: parklan...@googlegroups.com [mailto:parklan...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Rick Smith
Sent: Friday, August 11, 2023 7:48 AM
To: Parklandsupdate
Subject: [PLW Update] Manassas
Prince William Times (Warrenton, VA)
Thursday, August 10, 2023
Park superintendent warns of data centers’ ‘wholesale destruction’ of historic areas around the Manassas battlefield
National Park Service’s concerns about the Prince William Digital Gateway detailed in letters to county officials
- By Shannon Clark Times Staff Writer
Warning of the “wholesale destruction” of historic landscapes related to major Civil War camps and troop burials, the new superintendent of Manassas National Battlefield Park has stated his strong concerns about the Prince William Digital Gateway, a plan to build 28 to 34 new data centers on 2,133 acres directly north of the national park.
In recent letters to Prince William County officials, Kristopher Butcher, the new superintendent of the Manassas National Battlefield Park, stopped short of expressing the park’s outright opposition to the proposed data center development but called for additional “research, analysis and mitigation efforts” to protect the area’s numerous historic resources.
“The current rezoning applications show that there will be a negative effect on the park and its resources, and we are advocating to mitigate that through a variety of methods,” Butcher said in an email to the Prince William Times.
Butcher’s concerns were expressed in letters addressing three rezoning applications associated with the PW Digital Gateway that were uploaded onto the county website on July 28. Manassas National Battlefield Park is one of several agencies that submitted comments on the rezoning plans, which are now in their third iteration.
Butcher is not the first battlefield superintendent to express concerns about the PW Digital Gateway. In December 2021, former battlefield superintendent Brandon Bies called the data center development "the single greatest threat" to the park in three decades. In February, then-acting superintendent James Bailey objected to the height of the data centers planned closest to the battlefield.
Butcher’s letter regarding PW Digital Gateway South, an area of about 340 acres directly adjacent to the battlefield, said the data centers planned in that area would impact the site of Camp Hardee, which was used by the Confederate Army in the fall and winter of 1861 and 1862. The camp was the site of a measles outbreak that led to the deaths of hundreds of soldiers.
“Many of these soldiers have been identified with names, approx(imate) date of death, and military unit information from the archival records, as well as oral histories provided by the property owners,” Butcher’s letter said. “It is clear that these soldiers were buried within the vicinity of the Pageland farm. There are likely hundreds of soldiers' graves within the project area or its immediate environs.”
Butcher further noted that the lack of the discovery of a “mass grave” somewhere near the farm does not mean the area does not contain soldiers’ remains.
“The potential grave locations of the soldiers of Camp Hardee ... would be buried not in a singular mass grave, but in a series of planned military burials,” Butcher wrote.
Due to the burials, Butcher’s letter requests that ground radar and other analysis be conducted on the land before the rezoning moves forward.
Pageland Farm was the subject of a recent debate about investigating the area for possible designation as a “county registered historic site.”
On July 25, the Prince William Board of County Supervisors voted against a request from the county's historical commission to consider the area for the designation. The 3-5 vote split along party lines with the board's Democratic majority voting in opposition. Several supervisors said they believed the request was driven by opponents of the PW Digital Gateway
QTS, one of two data center developers seeking to build within the PW Digital Gateway, said its contractors have investigated the Pageland Lane corridor for historic resources and possible Civil War gravesites and have so far found no sign of human remains. Contractors have conducted more than 19,000 hand-dug “test pits,” according to a QTS spokesperson.
“To our knowledge, no evidence of human remains has been found, certainly none in recent history,” said Antonio J. Calabrese, a QTS attorney.
“Alleging that there are hundreds (or thousands) of bodies – with absolutely no documentation, no proof, and nothing credible other than ‘allegations’ – this is insufficient evidence for consideration by this responsible committee,” Calabrese said in a letter to the Prince William County Historical Commission.
Butcher’s letter further warned of the project’s negative impacts on agricultural outbuildings and Pageland II, a home built around 1855 for an overseer of the Marsteller family’s Pageland plantation.
The data center project would also contribute to the destruction of “enslaved cemeteries or dwellings” that have not yet been identified, Butcher’s letter said.
Butcher requested a full historic study of the Pageland II house as well as a cultural landscape report. A cultural landscape report describes the physical history, analyzes existing conditions and recommends actions to preserve, restore, or rehabilitate a landscape, Butcher said.
“Cultural landscapes are historically significant places that reveal human interaction with the physical environment over time,” Butcher said.
Butcher also wrote letters detailing the National Park Service’s concerns about the other two rezoning applications in the Pageland Lane corridor: PW Digital Gateway North and the application filed by H&H Capital Acquisitions, also known as Compass datacenters
Butcher said the NPS has concerns with both projects because of their impact on African American historical sites, including the Thornton School and an African American settlement that included the family of Jennie Dean.
The Thornton School educated freed slaves. Dean was born into slavery but went on to found the Manassas Industrial School for Colored Youth, the first secondary school for African American students in Northern Virginia.
“The northern area of the PW Digital Gateway is a rare and vanishing resource that tells the story of the African American community and experience after the Civil War forging a new life in a reconstructing South,” Butcher said in his letter about PW Digital Gateway North, which is also being developed by QTS.
In response to the letters, Compass data centers said the company completed a “comprehensive archaeological survey,” which determined no buildings occupied or owned by historic African American communities remain standing in the area of the Thornton settlement, according to Chris Curtis, Compass’ senior vice president of development and acquisitions.
Curtis noted that Compass has offered to help the county build an interpretive site commemorating the Thornton School and settlement “so that residents and visitors can appreciate the property’s important contributions to the region’s history.”
Butcher said he wants Prince William County officials and residents to know the NPS is concerned that the proposed data center developments will destroy historic sites “not yet protected by the park” and “degrade the integrity of those preserved by the park”
“As (the battlefield is) likely the final resting place of hundreds of soldiers, it is thus singularly important to the understanding of the war and the immense human cost it extracted from the county,” Butcher said in his letter.
Rick Smith
5264 N. Fort Yuma Trail
Tucson, AZ 85750
Email: rsmit...@comcast.net
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