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MIDDLETOWN -- Civil War re-enactors from several states marched from Middletown to the Reno Monument on South Mountain on Saturday to protest a gas compression station planned on the property of the former Fox's Tavern near South Mountain State Battlefield.
Fox's Tavern is on Marker Road and dates to the 1790s. Now a farmhouse, the stone building once hosted George Washington and other Colonial luminaries, and later served as a hospital following the battles of South Mountain and Antietam.
Historians say the Battle of South Mountain on Sept. 12, 1862, paved the way for the better known Battle of Antietam three days later. Since that battle, the area has remained mostly rural farmland, and much of the area is preserved through agricultural and historical preservation programs.
Dominion Transmission owns a gas pipeline through the area, and wants to build a gas compression station on the farmland surrounding Fox's Tavern. Company representatives did not attend Saturday's event, but have said that the compression station will be in keeping with the surrounding area.
"Dominion's original plan was to start construction in 2012, the 150th anniversary of the battle," said Rich Maranto, president of Citizens for the Preservation of Middletown Valley, an organization fighting the proposed compression station. A company spokesman said in July that the project has been suspended pending the review process.
"This is one of the Civil War Preservation Trust's top 10 endangered battlefields," Maranto said. The list, released earlier this year, names Civil War battlefields across America being threatened by development.
Re-enactors in Saturday's march represented the 30th Ohio, known as the Kanawha Regiment. The re-enactors traced the same five-mile route of the original regiment. They marched up Fox's Gap, one of four gaps along South Mountain, which saw most of the action during the battle.
"The Battle of South Mountain had 5,000 casualties, as many as First Manassas," said Audrey Scanlan, a re-enactor from Middletown and a member of the preservation group.
The re-enactors paused at the farm of Ned and Carolyn Hallein to speak to supporters. They camped at the farm Friday night in traditional Civil War-style tents before beginning their walk from Middletown.
The path the re-enactors followed was once called the Old Sharpsburg Road, according to Curt Older, a descendant of the Fox family and a historian. During the Civil War, he said, "Federal troops would have passed the inn and attacked at Fox's Gap."
President Abraham Lincoln later visited the area, traveling over Fox's Gap to get to the site of Antietam. "It was because of the two battles (South Mountain and Antietam) that Lincoln decided to issue the Emancipation Proclamation," Older said. "That's some tremendous history going through there."
"I think industrial facilities ought to be in industrial areas," Hallein said. "Local citizens have provided a number of industrial sites they (Dominion) have rejected out of hand."
Fox's Tavern is on Marker Road and dates to the 1790s. Now a farmhouse, the stone building once hosted George Washington and other Colonial luminaries, and later served as a hospital following the battles of South Mountain and Antietam.
Historians say the Battle of South Mountain on Sept. 12, 1862, paved the way for the better known Battle of Antietam three days later. Since that battle, the area has remained mostly rural farmland, and much of the area is preserved through agricultural and historical preservation programs.
Dominion Transmission owns a gas pipeline through the area, and wants to build a gas compression station on the farmland surrounding Fox's Tavern. Company representatives did not attend Saturday's event, but have said that the compression station will be in keeping with the surrounding area.
"Dominion's original plan was to start construction in 2012, the 150th anniversary of the battle," said Rich Maranto, president of Citizens for the Preservation of Middletown Valley, an organization fighting the proposed compression station. A company spokesman said in July that the project has been suspended pending the review process.
"This is one of the Civil War Preservation Trust's top 10 endangered battlefields," Maranto said. The list, released earlier this year, names Civil War battlefields across America being threatened by development.
Re-enactors in Saturday's march represented the 30th Ohio, known as the Kanawha Regiment. The re-enactors traced the same five-mile route of the original regiment. They marched up Fox's Gap, one of four gaps along South Mountain, which saw most of the action during the battle.
"The Battle of South Mountain had 5,000 casualties, as many as First Manassas," said Audrey Scanlan, a re-enactor from Middletown and a member of the preservation group.
The re-enactors paused at the farm of Ned and Carolyn Hallein to speak to supporters. They camped at the farm Friday night in traditional Civil War-style tents before beginning their walk from Middletown.
The path the re-enactors followed was once called the Old Sharpsburg Road, according to Curt Older, a descendant of the Fox family and a historian. During the Civil War, he said, "Federal troops would have passed the inn and attacked at Fox's Gap."
President Abraham Lincoln later visited the area, traveling over Fox's Gap to get to the site of Antietam. "It was because of the two battles (South Mountain and Antietam) that Lincoln decided to issue the Emancipation Proclamation," Older said. "That's some tremendous history going through there."
"I think industrial facilities ought to be in industrial areas," Hallein said. "Local citizens have provided a number of industrial sites they (Dominion) have rejected out of hand."
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