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(Continued from Page 1) for a halt to the proposed exchange submitted to Park Service personnel and government representatives. John S. Dodson, one of the petitioners, once owned 38 of the acres proposed for the Park land trade.
Between his grandfather and father, Dodson's family initially held over 300 acres that were absorbed into the Park. “They pushed us right out..,They didn't even pay for some of the land. They just took it,” recalling the blanket condemnation law that allowed Virginia to confiscate privately owned land for transfer to the federal government as a national park.
Dodson reported that his father paid $555 for one tract of 54 acres. When the land was taken for the Park, "they allowed us $192.50—that’s what we got for 54 acres,” he said in an interview last week. For all 300 and some acres, his family received approximately $2,200 for property that included 200 acres right up next to the Skyline Drive, according to Dodson.
"1 don’t like it,” Dodson said of the proposed land exchange. “If the Park doesn't want the land, they should give it back to us,” he maintained, adding that he could refund every bit of the purchase price paid to his father some 45 years ago.
Magdaline Dwyer, who lives in Old Hollow, remembers that her father was paid just $650 for 99 acres with a log house where all eight of the Dwyer children were born. According to Mrs. Dwyer, people who were forced off of their property to make way for the Park often had to watch hopelessly while officials burned their homes down.
“Some wanted to sell. Some didn’t. So they forced the little people out," she maintained. "A lot of people were dissatisfied. A lot of the old people grieved themselves to death...They didn't get enough to go buy land anywhere else. It was hard on the old people especially 'cause they took their homes," she said.
Mrs. Dwyer’s name is also on the petition circulated by F. D. Coffey. “They’ve taken the land and now let them keep it,” she stated.
Petitions drawn up by Barbara and Stanley Thompson, landowners with property adjacent to one of the Park land tracts in Rappahannock proposed to be traded, drew over 340 signatures calling for a 90 day delay and public hearings on the transaction
Legal Questions
In addition to raising questions on the morality of allowing lands acquired
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