On Thursday, December 3, 2020, the Coastal Land Trust saved a beautiful high bluff on the Tar River, in Pitt County. The 10.9-acre conservation easement was donated to the Coastal Land Trust by Dr. Stan and Ann Riggs, of Greenville, NC. Though small in size, this conservation easement expands the adjoining 49-acre conservation easement previously donated by Stan and Ann Riggs to the Coastal Land Trust in 2008. These 60 acres, now permanently protected, are close to Greenville and perfectly suited for riverfront residential subdivision development – as evidenced by the new subdivision immediately to the west of this property.
Stan and Ann Riggs have carefully managed their property through the years for research, education, wildlife habitat, and passive recreational uses. The two wonderful photos below show Dr. Stan Riggs, “the conservation man”, standing on the bluff of the new conservation easement property! Another photo of the lovely Riggs Tract is shown above.
A bit of history shared by Stan Riggs-
The property was part of a 1663 land grant from Charles II, King of England, to Lord [John] Carteret, the 2nd Earl of Granville. John Simpson bought this land and surrounding property from the Earl of Granville in the 1750s and named it Chatham Plantation. The Chatham Plantation was located at Rainbow Banks Landing on the south side of the Tar River. John Simpson, a prominent politician and plantation owner, produced primarily tobacco and naval stores of tar, pitch, and turpentine that were shipped by schooner from Rainbow Banks Landing to the Caribbean. John Simpson, who died in March 1788, is buried, along with his family, in the Simpson cemetery adjacent to the property owned by the Riggs.
A bit of coastal geology shared by Stan, a preeminent coastal geologist –
There is evidence of a mill dam across Mill Branch on adjacent property that may date back to the Chatham Plantation. When the dam was breached, a canal for Mill Branch was dug directly into the Tar River, which led to the abandonment of the old Mill Branch channel that flowed completely through the adjacent Riggs property and then into the Tar River. A slough adjacent to the property remains in place to this day as a remnant of the former Mill Branch drainage. The bottomlands adjacent to the Riggs Tract are regularly flooded by the Tar River; however, the old Mill Branch floodplain rises above the Tar River floodplain, floods irregularly, and forms a beautiful blackwater swamp. Brownwater and blackwater swamps converge in the gorgeous bottomlands adjacent to, and buffered by, the Riggs Tract. The Riggs Tract lies just west of the Lower Tar River Marshes and Swamp Significant Natural Heritage Area, as determined by the North Carolina Natural Heritage Program
The Coastal Land Trust obtained a mini-grant from the North Carolina Clean Water Management Trust Fund (now the North Carolina Land and Water Fund) to offset the transaction expenses and a portion of the stewardship endowment.
We extend our many thanks to Arey Grady and Kim Bazzle, of Grady Quattlebaum, PLLC, in New Bern, for their assistance with this transaction.
Three cheers for Stan and Ann Riggs for this generous donation and for their continued commitment to conservation and to the Coastal Land Trust!
