Presentation to the Goose Creek Association – 10/14/07
Bob Lee, Executive Director, Virginia Outdoors Foundation
According to the Geographic Names Information System, available on the Internet, Goose Creek has had variant names throughout history beginning with Native American names that I will not even try to pronounce, but old maps have appellations for this watercourse including Goes Creek, Goes Flug, Gohongarestaw, Gooscreek, Goose River, Lee’s Creek and Tiber River. Some folks here today probably know much about these other names, but as William Shakespeare advised “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” And so it is with Goose Creek.

Let me take the liberty of paraphrasing Ken Burns – Reverence for our cultural heritage will not save America from terrorism, but it will make us worth saving. The Goose Creek watershed represents a compelling example of heritage synergism where the whole is definitely more than the simple sum of the parts. Some of those parts are:

Scenic River designation now from the headwaters in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Fauquier County to its confluence with the Potomac River 45 miles downstream.– a 365 square mile watershed

Existing and proposed Historic Districts including: Goose Creek Rural Historic District, Outlands Historic District, Leithtown Historic District, Goose Creek/Cromwell’s Run Rural Historic District, Crooked Run Valley Rural Historic District, and John Marshall’s Leeds Manor Road Rural Historic District

Scenic Byway designations for many, maybe most, of the secondary roads appurtenant to Goose Creek

The James M. Rowley Goose Creek Land Conservation Fund

A plethora of Virginia Historic Landmarks and National Register of Historic Places designations including the significant and publicly accessible restored Goose Creek Stone Bridge – originally built in 1802 during the Presidency of Thomas Jefferson and one of the last remaining four arch stone bridges in Virginia. This bridge was abandoned by the Virginia Department of Transportation in 1957, but has been lovingly restored and preserved by the Fauquier/Loudoun Garden Club

Many other historic sites, too many to cite here, that comprise the incredible Journey Through Hallowed Ground and the Mosby Heritage Area

And finally, but significantly, the highest concentration of protected scenic landscapes in Virginia and the most extensive conservation easement protected water corridor, certainly in the Commonwealth, and possibly the entire east coast of the United States.

Representing the Virginia Outdoors Foundation, the holder of the preponderance of the aforesaid conservation easements in the Goose Creek watershed, it is an honor and privilege to recognize the exemplary efforts of the Goose Creek Association, the many riparian landowners, and private and public sector partners who have worked so long and hard to preserve the natural and cultural integrity of this very special water system. The recent Scenic River designation by the Virginia General Assembly of the Fauquier portion of Goose Creek represents another noteworthy milestone in the 35 year history of the Goose Creek Association. Also, just last week I received an email from Scenic Virginia Inc. indicating that the partner efforts of the Goose Creek Scenic Advisory Board received the 2007 Scenic Water Corridor Preservation Award. Our whole truly is more than the sum not only of the parts, but also of the partners.

Goose Creek has been referred to as the “Jewel of the Piedmont’ and many of those present today are deserving of recognition and commendation for your past and continuing stewardship of this extraordinarily noteworthy heritage resource that we know as Goose Creek.

This is appropriately your celebration, and while I am not exactly an interloper, I do want to stop talking before you stop listening. Let me close my remarks today with a quotation from the conclusion of A River Runs Through It, Norman Maclean’s lyrically beautiful novel, which expresses eloquently in one sentence what I have been trying to say for the past several minutes –

“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.”

Thank you for inviting me today.

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