Massive York County riverfront site with Native American, Civil War ties plans future
What do you do with close to 500 acres of historic, natural, riverfront property that’s been in the family for generations?
Keep it that way.
Owners Joseph and Annie Laura Hamrick plan a conservation easement for their home site on the western edge of York County, a mile north of Worth Mountain and almost four miles northwest of Hickory Grove. The 458 acres has been with the family since the 1950s, though its history dates back much further.
Smith Ford, a Broad River island used by Native Americans and fleeing Confederate soldiers to cross, is part of the property. So is a main residence built in 1790. Information sent by the York County Forever Commission to county staff notes Native Americans used the ford as far back as 10,000 BC. It notes word of Confederate retreat at the ford of troops detailed to Jefferson Davis after the fall of Richmond, Va.
“It’s a very historical place here,” said Annie Laura Hamrick. “Smith Ford on the Broad River is like Nation Ford to the Catawba. It had a lot of activity.”
Property history dates back to 1765 when the Smith family owned it. Now it has 50 sheep, 20 cows, goats, chickens and timber land. It has a mile and a quarter of river frontage.
“I just want to preserve land. We’re right on the Broad River,” Hamrick said. “My husband and I have always tried to do what we can to protect the river.”
York County Forever asked county council — the county has final say on York County Forever spending — for about $46,000 to have Nation Ford Land Trust handle appraisal, survey, legal fees and easement costs. York County Forever already approved it. Council votes June 15. Steve Hamilton, executive director with Nation Ford Land Trust, said his group is preparing an application for state conservation bank money for the property.
“All the pieces have to come together to get this one done,” Hamilton said.
He’s hopeful it will.
“It’s a big piece,” Hamilton said. “It’s got some real good qualities to it. It’s a beautiful piece of land.”
In addition to its Civil War history, similar to Fort Mill and other spots in York County where Confederate leaders passed through, Hamilton said the ford has importance back to a time when the area between the Catawba and Broad rivers — York County today — was a “no man’s land.” Both the Catawba and Cherokee used it, he said.
More recent significance involves the more than 1,600-acre county-owned Worth Mountain property run by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources.
“There’s some continuity, proximity to the Worth Mountain site,” Hamilton said.
Hamilton said preserving property works best when sites have some connection, even uses for easements can vary from continued private ownership to creation of a public park. The land trust recently acquired 24 acres in the Lake Wylie area almost in the shadow of Nanny’s Mountain, Hamilton said.
“We like to preserve properties that are near other properties that we have,” he said.
Nation Ford has been busy. The land trust and York County are working together on the Riverbend site on the Catawba River that will become a public greenway. Just last week the land trust closed on the 2,700-acre Stuck property south of Sharon.
“That one is a done deal,” Hamilton said.
For the Hamrick property, plans are to continue living on their site while also ensuring it won’t become a large development in the future.
“We want to preserve what we can, protect what we can,” Hamrick said.
In a county where residents in high-growth areas like Lake Wylie or Fort Mill plead with planners to require at least an acre each for new homes, the Hamrick property easement would allow a home only every 100 acres.
”And we don’t really figure that will ever be done,” Hamrick said.
Still, even in what she calls “western, western York County” Hamrick sees more new home activity than in decades past.
“In the last few years, we’re beginning to see it,” she said. “Especially since the timber companies have started to sell some of their land. Houses have started to pop up everywhere.”
She didn’t want to see them pop up on her property.
“We just didn’t want to see it developed,” Hamrick said.
