For the past 40 years, a group of dedicated residents – now known as the Friends of the White Clay Creek Preserve - have maintained and provided vision for the 3,000-acre property. Over that time, their work has been a selfless gift that will impact generations to come 

By Richard L. Gaw
Staff Writer

On the day that Brad Pedrow and his wife, Maddy, first visited what would soon become their Landenberg home in the spring of 2019, they were captivated by the near infinity views from their back deck that began with the Nivindel Farm below them and stretched far into the distance to the south, showcasing a collected vista known as the White Clay Creek Preserve.

After the couple settled into their new home, Pedrow, accompanied by his dog, Nyla, traversed the farm’s pastures and soon after, they pulled into Parking Lot #1 of the Preserve on London Tract Road and disappeared into the trailed thicket of what has become to those who visit a journey that opens the soul, soothes the heart and exposes the senses to a forever walk of sounds, sights and emotions.

At first, Pedrow did grasp the magnitude of what he and Nyla were walking through, but soon after, he absorbed the facts: the 3,050-acre White Clay Creek Preserve consumes a large part of the White Clay Creek Valley, and its topography varies from steep to gradually rolling hills and shares a boundary with Delaware’s White Clay Creek State Park in Newark. Together, both properties have become renowned for their scenery, opportunities for birdwatching and trout fishing, and for their historic features, such as lime kilns and 19th-century mills. 

With his traveling companion beside him, Pedrow, an information technology manager, explored the Preserve’s trails nearly every weekend. There, he saw Eagles soar above him. He took photographs of the multi-colored fungus growing along the trails. He sat at the edge of the White Clay Creek and listened to the gurgling chorus of water that tumbled over the rocks. 

“If you stop moving, stop doing anything and just watch, things in the Preserve begin to make themselves known to you,” Pedrow said. “They begin to come to life. Sometimes I will cut through an open field, and I will get to the end of it and while I know there is a trail somewhere, sometimes the trail is where I think it should be and sometimes it’s not. Eventually, I will find my way back to the trail.”

On one hike through the Preserve, Pedrow came across a man cleaning a drainpipe along the trail. They began talking. It turned out that the man on the trail was Gary Kirk, who has helped clear trails throughout the Preserve for many years. Soon after, they began texting back and forth; Pedrow began keeping Kirk informed of downed trees along the trails according to bridge numbers as a method of identifying where the downed tree was located.

“One day, Gary emailed me and said, ‘How would you like to come out and help me clear the trail?’” Pedrow said. “He told me that he was a member of the Friends of the White Clay Creek Preserve.” 

Pedrow soon became a member of the Friends group, joined Kirk’s Swampers, and was soon volunteering his time to weed evasive plants and take on the job of maintaining two trails of his own. 

Pedrow began attending meetings, and after a few months, an opening became available, and he joined the board. 

Last year, he took the place of Scotty Crowder, the group’s founding chairman.

Activists for the area

In order to properly document the 40-year history of what is now the Friends of the White Clay Creek Preserve, it is essential to introduce the many early pioneers who spearheaded the effort to make the Preserve a reality. Beginning in the 1960s, the DuPont Company had purchased all but approximately 300 acres of the White Clay Creek Watershed in anticipation of developing a new water source in New Castle County; specifically, to construct a dam along the White Clay Creek from Newark to Landenberg that would turn the valley into a reservoir and would provide water to Delaware.

Opposition to DuPont’s vision came quickly and from both sides of the Pennsylvania-Delaware state line. In Delaware, the Delaware Sierra Club, the United Auto Workers Union, and concerned citizens came together; in Pennsylvania, residents whose homes were along the White Clay Creek refused to sell their land, and soon, the homeowners were joined by others who lived in New Garden, Franklin and London Britain townships and beyond.

In 1965, both factions merged to form the White Clay Watershed Association and together, they worked with New Castle County to solve its water distribution issues.

When recalling the early pioneers whose efforts ultimately saved – and formed – the White Cay Creek Preserve, London Britain Supervisor Aileen Parrish praised a roster of names: Jan Kalb, Richard and Gwen Cramer, Dorothy Miller, Dick Robinson, Don Sharp and Sally Rickerman, to name a few.

“If there was a meeting in Harrisburg about the future of this land, Jan, Gwen, Dorothy and Sally were there,” she said. “If there was a meeting in Dover, they were there. They were absolutely dedicated and remarkable individuals. They were all wives of DuPont executives and together, they became the activists for the area, and were it not for them, I don’t know what this incredible land would look like today.” 

If the first 20 years of the White Clay Watershed Association’s existence were spent providing guidance to DuPont to recalibrate its idea for a dam, their next 20 years were trained on determining the future of the property. Working with then Delaware Sen. Joe Biden and the National Park Service, the Association helped negotiate a land donation contract with DuPont that created a two-park system.

On October 16, 1984, the DuPont Company donated 1,762 acres of land, creating the White Clay Creek State Park in Delaware, the White Clay Creek State Park and Preserve in Pennsylvania, and the formation of an advisory board in November of 1984 that became known as the Bi-State Advisory Council. It was an immediate show of galvanization, made up of residents from both states: Dorothy Miller, Norman Wilder, Dr. Bernard Sweeney, William Sellers, Joseph O’Neill, James Hall, Charles Bailey, Jaqueline Peltier, Gordon Woodrow, William Toblin, Don Sharp and a young man named Gary Schroeder.

“We had a blank canvas to work with,” Schroeder said in a prior interview. “In the beginning, we met every month with lots of assignments. It was new and two states were working together to integrate a plan. There were two philosophies, two agencies, and two budgets. We were trying to do something different. This was to be low impact use; a preserve versus a state park.”

It was the work of the group that earned the entire White Clay Creek Watershed the designation to the Wild and Scenic Rivers Program. 

Preserve designation by Congress as a National Wild and Scenic River, and in 2012, the Friends of the White Clay Creek Preserve was formed as a volunteer community service organization committed to supporting the Preserve through improvement and maintenance projects, educational programs, and fundraising.

To this day, the dedication of the Friends is never-ending; in addition to building and maintaining trails, the group launched the London Tract Historical Committee in 2019 to explore methods of preserving historical structures within the Preserve, including the historic John Evans House, built in 1715 and said to be the oldest structure in the area. 

The house, which was victimized by a severe fire in 2017, was on the docket to be demolished, as per an order from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR), leading members of the Committee to join with several environmental and historical agencies in an effort to save it. In a May 29, 2019 letter to former State Sen. Any Dinniman, the Committee - backed by the New Garden Township Historical Commission, the White Clay Watershed Association, the White Clay Creek Wild and Scenic River Program, the London Britain Township  Historical Commission and the Chester County Planning Commission - encouraged Dinniman’s office to “use its powers to halt DCNR’s demolition plan,” and allow committee additional time to study the site and secure funding in order to preserve it.

On June 10, 2019, Dinniman wrote a letter to The Hon. Cindy Adams Dunn at DCNR, expressing his concern about the agency’s demolition plans, and requesting a site visit meeting with DCNR officials and members of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission and elected officials.

“Since it has become known that the DCNR has plans to demolish this structure, a significant number of my constituents have contacted me with strong opposition to the proposed removal of this historic resource,” Dinniman’s letter read. “Simply put, many in my district are concerned that the demolition of this historic property will forever remove the potential opportunity for future generations to witness a direct link to our nation’s founding.”

As a result of these collective efforts, the DCNR backed away from their plan to demolish the house, and today, the Committee is undergoing a long-term plan to stabilize and preserve the structure’s shell as part of the rich history of the White Clay Creek Preserve and the surrounding region.

“I feel our efforts to save the John Evans House would be dead if it were not for Andy Dinniman,” said Committee member John Starzmann. “I was in a panic mode when I found that the Evans House was going to be demolished, but now that the pressure is off and we know that the house will be preserved, now we have to see how we’re going to obtain various kinds of funding in order to stabilize the structure.”

‘This is part of who we are’

One day on the Preserve’s trails, Pedrow met a father who was accompanied by his son, who appeared to have mental and physical challenges and clung to his father’s shoulders as they walked.  

“The father told me that even when they run into the smallest downed tree, his son cannot traverse these obstacles, so they have to turn around and go back,” he said. “I realize that for all the joy I get from the trails, there are people who can’t climb over downed trees, so it’s our responsibility to keep the trails free and clear for people like that man’s son.”

Nyla is not Pedrow’s only accompaniment at the Preserve.

“Even before I joined the Friends, I carried a trash bag with me, because while I love nature, I abhor seeing trash because it ruins the experience,” he said. “Even if I had never joined the Friends, it is important that the Preserve remans clean, because those trails are owned by everyone. It’s a sense of giving back to my community, and while I am on those trails, I may as well do something to help people.”

In 1984, Starzmann and his wife Carol moved to their Landenberg home, and although it was only three miles away from their previous home, it was a far more rural setting, beautified by its proximity to the White Clay Creek Preserve. Soon after moving, Starzmann met Phil Krause, who was in the beginning stages of forming what would become the Friends of the White Clay Creek Preserve.

“Phil got me involved and took me through the proposed trails, and I joined one of the group’s subcommittees,” he said. “I wrote my first letter as a member and referred to the ‘preserve’ as a ‘park’ by mistake. Phil politely chastised me, and I don’t think I ever used the word ‘park’ in any correspondence again. 

“We all do it for the simple reason that we all live here. We love the beauty of it. We love the quiet. We love its history. As we begin to know one another, we quickly find that we have a commonality among us - similar backgrounds, interests and an appreciation for something so increasingly rare as a preserve.”

At the White Clay Creek Preserve parking area on Broad Run Road, there are license plates from Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland, as well as New York and New England. 

“The White Clay Creek Preserve is an absolute jewel to this entire region,” Parrish said. “We have had people visit Landenberg from all over the country who tell us, ‘Living here feels like you’re on vacation all the time.’ Each person tells their story about what the Preserve has meant to them. 

“You live your life, and you hope to achieve things for the community, but you don’t often take the time to reflect on those gifts you have given to others. This is a remarkable gift that we have received, thanks to the many people who helped preserve it.”

Several years ago, days after Schroeder was on one of his many runs through Landenberg in training for an upcoming marathon, he spoke with Gwen Cramer. 

“She told me, ‘Gary, I have been so worried about this Preserve. How do we protect this in the future?’” Schroeder said. “Here is someone who was in the twilight of her life and yet she was concerned about the next 100 years of this property. She told me, ‘Then I saw you out there running, and I realized that we did have people who are going to take care of this in the future, and that we were all going to be okay.’

“It was another way of demonstrating how tied we all are to this unique concept of preserving this preserve in a way no one else has done. We have a unique property here that is very special and it’s not just a patch of land that we get to hike on. It’s not just what we do. This is part of who we are. It’s not too big a stretch to claim that the soul of the community is invested in this, and that is a whole new depth of feeling, understanding and emotional ties that transcend just a normal walk in the woods.”

To learn more about the Friends of the White Clay Creek Preserve, visit https://friendsofpawccp.org.

To contact Staff Writer Richard L. Gaw, email [email protected].