Evington, 24550

By Sarah Watson

Published: October 5, 2008

Standing next to a fading flower garden on Laura Ruffin-Skrypek’s 75-acre property, waves of wind rushed through distant trees and cities of insects buzzed while hidden in the end-of-summer grass.

Sounds from civilization aren’t audible, an amenity that just added to the reasons for purchasing the property in 2006, Ruffin-Skrypek said.

Related:
Digging deep in Lynchburg’s largest quarry, where the rock is about to run out

 

Boxley quarry proposal stirs neighbors’ fears in Evington

“Almost everybody who has been here to visit says, ‘It’s so quiet here.’”

Evington’s silence and abundant wildlife are just a few of many reasons its residents treasure the spread-out enclave with roots dating back to land grants from the British crown.

“We don’t have streets, we don’t have stop lights,” said Sara Wil Saunders, a former resident whose family owns more than 1,000 acres of one of the community’s first settlements.

“We just are remnants of the way things have always been.”

Residents worry a proposed quarry — which goes before the Campbell County Board of Supervisors tonight — will irrevocably change their community.

They have banded together to fight the proposal. Hundreds turned out to a public hearing in July, where the planning commission voted 5-2 not to recommend approval of the project. Signs protesting the quarry line roads throughout the area.

Boxley Materials Co. has owned 914 acres of land since 2005 and wants to mine about 100 acres for greenstone. The rock, company officials say, is crucial to its future business in the area and keeping construction costs low in the region. Company officials estimate Boxley’s Lawyers Road quarry has about 15 years of rock left and the Evington site would be a 100-year replacement.

Neighbors, however, fear noise, dust and traffic, and worry that blasting could harm their wells.

“People are living quietly, back in their own little place and suddenly Boxley has arrived and everyone is threatened by something they know instinctively will alter their whole community,” Saunders said.

Evington was named for late-1800s resident Miss Evie Smith, who donated land for a railroad right of way, a tiny railroad depot and post office, Saunders said. Within two miles of the proposed quarry are at least 15 homes and ruins with origins before the Civil War, neighbors said.

“People here know what’s important,” Ruffin-Skrypek said. “Keeping God in your life, really participating in being a family, instilling the values that are useful for survival, just knowing how to get by, knowing how to get through life and just being respectful of other people.”

Some residents even live off their land and hunt for food. Homes hidden off narrow country roads seem as if they are living in another generation, Ruffin-Skrypek said. “There’s a tradition, it’s sort of old-fashioned,” she said, “but people here are just responsible, respectable, good hardy people.”

Nuclear engineer Mike Savela purchased 14 acres about two years ago because he wanted to live in a tranquil place where he eventually could grow grapes and raise a family.

“We have the peace and quiet and the lifestyle that nobody in a subdivision in Lynchburg has and that’s why we’re here instead of there,” he said.

Jesse Keesee has ancestral roots to his property dating to the original king’s land grant in the 1700s. His children and grandchildren live on the same road. “My land, my children, my livelihood are here,” he said. “If you have a problem, these people will help you in any way they can. We’ll help you or our church will help you.”

Marie and Addison Mason purchased 15 acres and a house named Caryswood without much knowledge of the building’s rich history, only to be adopted by descendents of the Saunders family.

Over the years, Saunders descendents from throughout the country have visited the Masons’ house to refresh memories or to learn details of their origins.

“It’s not like a lot of communities, where families are not connected,” Marie Mason said. “People care about families and the ones growing up care and want to come back and learn about their
ancestors.”

“It’s been undisturbed for generations and it has been allowed to evolve into what it is, which is gradually becoming good subdivisions,” Saunders said. “You can’t find an area like this in very many places in Virginia. It’s disappearing.”