The Moyaone Reserve is a neighborhood located within

Piscataway Park Piscataway Park is a National Park Service-protected area located southwest of downtown Washington, D.C. in and around Accokeek, Maryland. It protects the National Colonial Farm, Marshall Hall, and the Accokeek Creek Site. The park is locate ...

in Accokeek. The neighborhood was given

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

status in 2020 and is within the historic

viewshed A viewshed is the geographical area that is visible from a location. It includes all surrounding points that are in line-of-sight with that location and excludes points that are beyond the horizon or obstructed by terrain and other features (e.g. ...

Mount Vernon Mount Vernon is an American landmark and former plantation of Founding Father, commander of the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War, and the first president of the United States George Washington and his wife, Martha. The estate is on ...

. It is split between

Prince George's County, Maryland ) , demonym = Prince Georgian , ZIP codes = 20607–20774 , area codes = 240, 301 , founded date = April 23 , founded year = 1696 , named for = Prince George of Denmark , leader_title = Executive , leader_name = Angela D. Alsobroo ...

and

Charles County, Maryland Charles County is a county in Southern Maryland. As of the 2020 census, the population was 166,617. The county seat is La Plata. The county was named for Charles Calvert (1637–1715), third Baron Baltimore. Charles County is part of the Wash ...

. The name Moyaone is derived from name of the town Moyaone, the major town of the

Piscataway Piscataway may refer to: *Piscataway people, a Native American ethnic group native to the southern Mid-Atlantic States *Piscataway language *Piscataway, Maryland, an unincorporated community *Piscataway, New Jersey, a township *Piscataway Creek, Ma ...

Native American tribe In the United States, an American Indian tribe, Native American tribe, Alaska Native village, tribal nation, or similar concept is any extant or historical clan, tribe, band, nation, or other group or community of Native Americans in the Unit ...

. The archaeological remains of Moyaone are at the Accokeek Creek Site, within Piscataway Park. The Moyaone is bordered to the north by Piscataway Creek, to the east by MD Route 210, and to the west is Marshall Hall Road. The Moyaone Reserve is governed by the Moyaone Association.

History

In 1922,

Henry G. Ferguson Henry Gardiner Ferguson (January 21, 1882 – November 29, 1966) was an American geologist with the United States Geological Survey (USGS). He worked primarily in Nevada and was a pioneer in the geology of the central Great Basin, producing many p ...

and his wife Alice purchased a 330-acre farm named Hard Bargain Farm on the Potomac River.Ferguson, AL, and Ferguson, HG. 1960. ''The Piscataway Indians of Southern Maryland''. Alice Ferguson Foundation. Their farm became a center of social activity and several other people purchased properties nearby including Lenore Thomas Straus and her husband Robert W. Straus, government economist Charles Kramer and Washington architect Charles Wagner. Alice Ferguson gradually purchased adjacent land in a development company named the Piscataway Company, which included a covenant that all land would be subdivided no smaller than 5 acres. Alice Ferguson died in 1952, leaving additional land and money to the Piscataway Company. In an effort to more efficiently manage its resources, the Piscataway Company split into multiple organizations. These included the Moyaone Association, a non-profit civic organization, and the Alice Ferguson Foundation which runs Hard Bargain Farm. Over the next decades the Moyaone Association was one of several organizations along with the Alice Ferguson Foundation, the

Mount Vernon Ladies' Association The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association (MVLA) is a non-profit organization that preserves and maintains the Mount Vernon estate originally owned by the family of President George Washington. The association was founded in 1853 by Ann Pamela Cunni ...

, and later the Accokeek Foundation, that were active in conservation efforts in and around

. This was called Operation Overview. In 1955, a 485-acre farm across from Mount Vernon went up for sale, and there were rumors that an oil company was to buy it. On behalf of the Moyaone association, Wagner reached out to

Charles Wall Charles Cecil Wall (June 21, 1903 – May 1, 1995) was an American self-taught historian and preservationist, who spent nearly 40 years as resident director of George Washington's estate at Mount Vernon on the banks of the Potomac River, wher ...

, the Resident Director of Mount Vernon and its parent organization, the

, then led by

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

Member of Congress

Frances P. Bolton Frances Payne Bolton (née Bingham; March 29, 1885 – March 9, 1977) was a Republican politician from Ohio. She served in the United States House of Representatives. She was the first woman elected to Congress from Ohio. In the late 1930s Bolton ...

. Bolton and the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association had expressed a desire to protect the view from Mount Vernon. Ultimately, Bolton purchased the farm with plans to transfer it to the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...

. At this point Bolton, Wagner, Straus, and Wall developed a plan to protect the Mount Vernon viewshed. In 1957, Bolton founded the Accokeek Foundation, one of the nation's first

land trust Land trusts are nonprofit organizations which own and manage land, and sometimes waters. There are three common types of land trust, distinguished from one another by the ways in which they are legally structured and by the purposes for which th ...

s. The Foundation was used to purchase of land in Piscataway Park to help preserve the area, in addition to land that Bolton transferred to the foundation. The Accokeek Foundation runs the National Colonial Farm, which is adjacent to the Moyaone Reserve and within Piscataway Park. In 1960, the

Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission The Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC Water) is a bi-county political subdivision of the State of Maryland that provides safe drinking water and wastewater treatment for Montgomery and Prince George's Counties in Maryland except ...

(WSSC) wanted to build a water treatment plant in Mockley Point, which was Accokeek shoreline. Since it would disrupt the view of Mount Vernon and

Fort Washington Park Fort Washington, located near the community of Fort Washington, Maryland, was for many decades the only defensive fort protecting Washington D.C. The original fort, overlooking the Potomac River, was completed in 1809, and was begun as Fort War ...

, various people and organizations protested against it. As a result, WSSC was not allowed to build the plant there; however, a plant was built in the 1960s in the surrounding area. In response to this, The Moyaone Association, Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, and other local groups mobilized to find a legislative solution to protecting the Accokeek shoreline and Mount Vernon viewshed. In 1961, a joint resolution to preserve the viewshed was introduced in the

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...

by Senator

Clinton Anderson Clinton Presba Anderson (October 23, 1895 – November 11, 1975) was an American politician who represented New Mexico in the United States Senate from 1949 until 1973. A member of the United States Democratic Party, Democratic Party, he pr ...

with identical text in the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the Lower house, lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States Senate, Senate being ...

by Representative John P. Saylor. The resolution was quickly passed and signed by

President John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until assassination of Joh ...

. Its purpose was to "preserve lands which provide the principal overview from the Mount Vernon Estate and Fort Washington" in order to designate around Mockley Point, which was to be the site of water treatment plant, as a national landmark. The resolution also authorized the National Park Service to receive donations and scenic easements from adjacent communities. This allowed Moyaone residents to transfer their easements to the federal government. In 2019, the Moyaone Association applied for designation of the neighborhood in the National Register of Historic Places in part after a battle with

Dominion Energy Dominion Energy, Inc., commonly referred to as Dominion, is a North American power and energy company headquartered in Richmond, Virginia that supplies electricity in parts of Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina and supplies natural gas t ...

over the siting of a natural gas plant. The application argued that the Moyaone Reserve satisfied three criteria for inclusion: a history of conservation, a history of community planning, and its specific architectural legacy. It was granted in October 2020.

Moyaone Reserve's history of conservation

The Moyaone Reserve's approach to conservation was described by Maryland Republican Senator

John Marshall Butler John Marshall Butler (July 21, 1897March 14, 1978) was an American lawyer and politician. A Republican, he served as a United States Senator from Maryland from 1951 to 1963. Early life and career Born in Baltimore, Maryland, to John Harvey and ...

as "an almost unique or pilot project in cooperative individual activity for the development and use of the countryside without destroying its natural attraction." This operated by purchasing land, subdividing it, placing restrictive covenants on it via

conservation easement In the United States, a conservation easement (also called conservation covenant, conservation restriction or conservation servitude) is a power invested in a qualified private land conservation organization (often called a "land trust") or gove ...

s, and then reselling the land. Robert Straus, one of the founders of the Moyaone Association, described it as "zoning on a do-it-yourself basis." For a period of time, the Accokeek Foundation held the conservation easements before they could be transferred to the federal government in the early 1970s. To supplement this strategy, in 1965 and 1966, the Moyaone Association lead the effort first at the state level and then at the local level to recognize easement donations. In 1966, Prince George's County became the first locality in the country to grant local tax credits for easement donations. This is now a standard form of conservation easement.

Architecture

From the beginning, many Moyaone properties were designed with a modern aesthetic. Wagner designed a number of homes modeled on

Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...

's architecture, while Straus's home was built by

Charles M. Goodman Charles M. Goodman, FAIA (November 26, 1906 – October 29, 1992) was an American architect who made a name for his modern designs in suburban Washington, D.C. after World War II. While his work has a regional feel, he ignored the colonial rev ...

, a leading

modernist Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...

architect. Lenore Straus also maintained an artist studio on their property. These formed the beginning of the Moyaone Reserve's Mid-century modern architectural legacy.

Notable people

* Lenore Thomas Straus *

External links

The Moyaone AssociationThe Accokeek FoundationThe Alice Ferguson Foundation

References