“The Capital Region Land Conservancy has just made two more moves in its bid to preserve land in eastern Henrico.

The local nonprofit last month launched a roughly $1.5 million capital campaign to build a war chest toward its ongoing plan to acquire sections of the Civil War-era Battlefield of New Market Heights. And on Tuesday, the conservancy announced it had gifted 61 acres of nearby land at New Market and Doran roads to Central Virginia Agrarian Community Land Trust, which plans to use it as farmland for future farmers in the county.

CRLC executive director Parker Agelasto said the capital campaign will go toward paying off debt previously incurred from its purchase of acreage on which the Battle of New Market Heights was fought in 1864, as well as to raise for any potential additional battlefield land that could go up for sale in the near future.

Agelasto told BizSense on Monday he feels the New Market Heights capital campaign and the gifted 61 acres both exemplify a mission to preserve long undeveloped land in Henrico County in the face of continuous growth in the county.

The land conservancy’s interest in protecting battlefields began with its previous acquisition of the nearby 871-acre Malvern Hill Farm property, which was completed in 2022 with the last transfer of land, Agelasto said.

Around the same time, the land conservancy turned its attention to other battlefield areas in eastern Henrico, most notably the New Market Heights battlefield, which sits along the intersection of New Market Road and Kingsland Road. The battlefield is a Civil War site where United States Colored Troops fought successfully against Confederate forces in September of 1864.

Agelasto noted the site’s historical significance, with 14 of the 20-some Civil War-era Medals of Honor awarded to black soldiers and sailors given to those present at the New Market Heights battle.

Yet the site, which spans around 2,100 acres of “core battlefield,” has received less attention and prominence than other Civil War historic sites, Agelasto said.

“(It) was not looked at as prominently by historians, for whatever reason,” he said. “It kind of became known as the ‘Forgotten Fourteen,’” he said of the 14 Medal of Honor recipients.

In 2021, Preservation Virginia added the battlefield to its list of Virginia’s most endangered historic places. Agelasto said Capital Region Land Conservancy has been acquiring parts of the battlefield piecemeal over the last few years, as further development continues to build up around the Henrico site.

Agelasto said that previous plans to develop the battlefield site have been in the works, including a previously put-forth 650-home development that would have cut straight through the battlefield, though this plan was withdrawn by developer D.R. Horton in 2022.

In 2021, CRLC was gifted the nearby 353-acre Varina LandLab property at 9200 Deep Bottom Road, which now serves as a hiking, birding and education area that features some information about the battle at New Market Heights.

“That particular property was a bridgehead for the Union Army. They had a fort, a small footprint, but a fort that they kept there on the James River,” Agelasto said. “They had tens of thousands of troops cross for the First Battle of Deep Bottom, the Second Battle of Deep Bottom and, ultimately, the Battle of New Market Heights.”

The land conservancy in 2022 purchased 49 acres of battlefield land at Fordson Farm where the 22nd U.S. Colored Troops attacked the Texas Brigade, and was also gifted 28 acres of battlefield land at Four Mile Creek Farm from Howard Eberly, whose family had owned the land for several generations.

Last year, CRLC took on $750,000 worth of debt to purchase 31 acres of battlefield at Griggs Pond and 45 acres adjacent to Four Mile Creek Farm, bringing the land conservancy’s New Market Heights battlefield holdings up to 500 acres of the roughly 2,100 acres designated as core battlefield by the congressional Civil War Sites Advisory Committee.

“When the real estate market is moving, you got to jump on these opportunities quickly,” Agelasto said. “We realized that this was our chance to make a much larger conservation effort for the Battle of New Market Heights … the value of land is not getting any cheaper, and the risks and the threats of development are at an all-time high.”

He added that CRLC currently has two letters of intent signed with landowners to purchase another 150 acres of battlefield for $1.5 million. He declined to share as of now which specific properties constitute the 150 acres, but noted it is in the “core battlefield” area.

Agelasto noted that American Battlefield Trust owns around 50 acres of the New Market Heights battlefield, while Henrico County owns 210 acres of battlefield adjacent to one of CRLC’s holdings that will be protected by a conservation easement.

The county is currently working on plans to turn its 210 acres into New Market Heights Park, as well as a multi-use path called the New Market Heights trail that would connect to areas owned by CRLC.

Agelasto said he feels land conserved by CRLC can potentially serve as a walkable area that can work in tandem with Henrico County’s New Market Heights plans.

“When you kind of put it all together, you get to a much larger landscape of conserved land,” Agelasto said. “We want to see more land in Henrico County conserved. (Henrico) wants to be able to open up their land for public access, and if we can connect this larger landscape … does it matter who owns what part of it?”

Agelasto said CRLC felt now was the right time to launch a capital campaign given those two pending letters of intent.

“We’re trying to make sure we have the right land and the connections that we need for that trail to then spur trails that get you further into the battlefield landscape and out into nature,” he said.

CRLC has raised just over $44,000 toward the campaign as of May 11, and has a commitment for just over $150,000 from a donor. He added the land conservancy is also currently working on grant applications toward the project.

Agelasto said that CRLC does not often publicly fundraise for projects, though it did for the Malvern Hill project a decade ago, adding that the team felt the New Market Heights land was important enough to take that step.

He said CRLC is also fundraising for a Scott’s Addition project to turn the former Christie’s Fine Gardening & Creative Landscapes at 3420 Norfolk St. into a public park.

Agelasto has been out to the conserved land with several descendants of Medal of Honor recipients from the Battle of New Market Heights, noting the emotional and historical aspect makes the land worth preserving.

“They’re not making any more land, and we have land that has very rich history and natural resources. We need to prioritize protecting those authentic places and directing development in places that either have already been harmed or that may not carry as much conservation benefit,” he said.

The New Market Heights battlefield acreage also overlaps somewhat with the 61-acre tract at New Market and Doran roads that CRLC gifted to the Central Virginia Agrarian Community Land Trust.

The Richmond-based nonprofit was founded three years ago to preserve farmland from being lost to development and to provide opportunities particularly for “historically marginalized” non-white farmers, board chair Duron Chavis said.

CRLC had previously received the acreage as a gift in 2024 from Randy Welch, who has worked with the land conservancy in the past.

Agelasto said CRLC received $400,000 from the Virginia Outdoors Foundation through their preservation trust fund, which afforded the land conservancy the ability to gift the property to the land trust.

Agelasto said he and the land trust team feel the deal gets land back into the hands of small farmers, especially in an already-developed area.

“There’s good buffer in most places, but we’re surrounded (here) by a lot of subdivision and housing. There are, I would say, probably about eight or nine hundred homes that are all within a half-mile of here,” he said.

Chavis said the land trust’s newly acquired land can be a “peri-urban farm space” that could give beginner farmers the ability to scale operations by providing small areas for farmers to grow their crops.

“We already have smaller spaces that are giving people, like, a quarter-acre or so, but … having them have an opportunity to evolve into an acre space, two-acre space, three-acre space. Just really evolve their operations and generate revenue,” Chavis said.

Chavis added the land trust could pursue some small-scale housing on the site within an allotted area that would likely consist of around four tiny homes for farmers who also want to live on the site. He noted that those plans are still in the early stages.

He added that with the land trust’s focus on providing opportunities to minority farmers, he feels the land’s overlap with the New Market Heights battlefield is intentional and could provide opportunities for some sort of visitor education area that tells the history of the U.S. Colored Troops and the history of black farming in the region.

“The most exciting part about it is the history of it … our work explicitly around creating equitable solutions and strategies,” he said. “It’s like the alignment is perfect.”

This article was originally published in Richmond BizSense on May 13, 2026, by author Jackie DiBartolomeo.

The post CRLC Raising Funds to Buy More of New Market Heights battlefield, Transfers Nearby Farmland to Land Trust first appeared on Capital Region Land Conservancy.