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Alive with Memories, Wood’s Mill Bend Holds Promise for the Future
by Peg Parker It was love at first sight that cold December day in 1972. After a drive through rural Chatham County, we parked on an old logging road and took off into the loblolly forest rimming State Road 1506. Following behind our real estate agent, Wallie Kaufman, we four Parkers traversed 22 acres of land on the Rocky River.
My husband, John, and I had looked at other lands in Orange and Chatham Counties but nothing spoke to us with the promise of a family get-away site. Wallie veered left into the brush and we found ourselves half sliding, half jumping past cedars and hardwoods down a steep incline into the bottom of a millrace run. Scrambling up the opposite bank we glimpsed the flight of a blue heron taking off from the old dam. Sounds of the river spilling over the dam and racing down its narrow rocky bed were music to my ears. This property looked, sounded and smelled good to me. Our children, Ben and Claire, marveled at the iridescent mussel shells in the filtered sunlight. Branches of towering sycamores and beeches gracefully swayed over us. Bounding ahead, our dog, Sybil, discovered a magnificent outcropping of huge boulders extending into the river. "Why is the water brown and clear coming down the river but bubbly white when it splashes over rocks into a pool?" asked seven-year-old Ben as he stared in wonder at the expansive riffles and eddies. That was the first of many curiosities generated by our ownership and explorations of this wilderness we purchased in January 1973. Our family spent 30 years discovering wondrous features, creatures and secrets, and sharing them with friends and relatives. We found the old millpond and stumbled upon stone and iron remnants of the mill protruding above encroaching wildflowers. In summers we picnicked on huge boulders and dipped in pools. In winters we nestled into sculptured rock formations watching hawks soar above. Children fought fictitious invaders from a favorite perch: a saddle seat atop an inland boulder covered in mosses and baby ferns. We swung from thick vines hanging from the tree canopy. An island at a sharp bend in the river grew and shrank with the seasons. At its southern end the river flows in a broad and peaceful course below steep riparian cliffs. Excursions after storms and hurricanes showed waist-high watermarks of debris, up-turned massive trunks displaying flora and fauna in the exposed red-clay undersides and graphic evidence of a fish kill. More than once we lost our bearings following animal tracks into the interior. The river's constant babble and flow served as our compass. The children chased butterflies and dragonflies while we restored our work-weary souls absorbing Nature's wonders. Our dreams of an abode overhanging the rocks, so the gurgling river could lull us to sleep, vanished with John's premature death. So I approached TLC as a possible caretaker for our Shangri-La. Their evaluation identified the property as a Natural Heritage site harboring several endangered species, and TLC accepted the property. I am grateful for TLC's protection of this special land as a preserved playground for other families, a haven for the survival of the fittest animals, trees and plants, and an undisturbed open space to experience and observe. Those loblollies we first walked under have fallen to the scourges of beetles and storms. Now naked pines,"owl trees" to us, spike the sky. The upper lands boast maples, sweet gums, hollies and rhododendrons. It's wonderful to know the fascinating facets of our Rocky River property will be available for others to discover, enjoy and be revived by. Peg Parker is a long-time TLC member from Chapel Hill; she donated the Wood’s Mill Bend property to TLC in August of 2002.
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