On July 5, 1976, toward the close of the Bicentennial Folklife Festival, Margaret Nygard with Holger at her side exclaimed:

Friends!
Friends of the Festival,
Friends of the Eno,

When this festival started the Mayor and the City Council paid my husband and myself a warm tribute for our efforts in the preservation of the Eno. I want to hand that thanks right back to you.

Never in my wildest dreams could I have believed that the opening of the Eno River Park would start with so magnificent a celebration. It’s a miracle! And it just goes to show that people working together can make wonders.

When you go away from here I want you to remember three things:

One is, that the ground you’re walking on, the ground you’re sitting on, the ground this festival is on was slated to be a shopping center. And there would’ve been a high-rise office building where you’re sitting. Working together we made this happen.

And the second thing is, if you walk upstream and see the river flowing free, it flows that way because of you. We made it happen together.

And the third thing is, the battle isn’t over yet. We need your help. The park is just beginning. We’ve got 1,600 acres in the state park and 400 in the city, and we’ve got a way to go. So help us build it. Help us build that mill! And thank you very much! This is a festival to remember for 200 years!

The opening of West Point on the Eno City Park marked a milestone, the culmination of a long battle to save the historic site containing the McCown-Mangum House, Hugh Mangum’s early photography studio, and West Point Mill. At that time the work to preserve the Eno River as parkland had been a fledgling struggle of 12 years, and she was to push on with the work for another 19. She declared the pairing of the statewide Folklife Festival with the opening of West Point on the Eno on America’s 200th birthday to be “a miracle.” Next day the Greensboro papers ran that hammerhead across their front page. George Holt observed after her death in 1995 that the allied purposes of “land conservation and historic preservation and the preservation of North Carolina folkways and cultural traditions just gelled.”

Margaret’s earliest act to defend the Eno was an op-ed to the Durham paper around 1964, chastising them for not reporting a major fish-kill. It was caused by a chemical spill from a highway accident. Several cows died from poison water. She made the point that children swim and people fish in the Eno. The river reeked of dekyl alcohol and dead fish for miles, a stench so toxic it drove the Nygards from their home by the river to stay with friends in town.

Upon learning of Durham’s plan to dam the Eno for a reservoir, a group of some three families, including historian Jean Anderson and her husband Carl, formed the Association for the Preservation of the Eno River Valley, which was to grow into the nonprofit group we know today. Rather than solely reacting to oppose the dam, the Association’s visionary goal was to preserve the river for use as natural parkland. A civil engineer, Dr. Hai Chuan Tang, was hailed as a hero when he determined the old plan for the reservoir would only yield half of the anticipated volume of water and found better water sources for Durham. The effort to conserve the Eno was strategically organized with government planners, foremost among them Pearson Stewart, chief of the Research Triangle Regional Planning Commission. They acted with prescience and practicality in response to the megalopolis they knew was coming. They intended that there be a far-reaching wilderness corridor on the river to provide clean water, wildlife habitat, and outdoors recreation. The megalopolis they saw coming is now here.

In the 1976 address Margaret said “We made it happen together.” Over time the work to save the Eno was so transformative that many who had opposed the park became fervent supporters. They grew to value water protection, historic preservation, and the beauty of natural habitat instead of rampant development. To stereotype those involved at the time as being “tree-huggers” or “old-school activists” is to dismiss the breadth of the public effort that took place. They numbered in the hundreds, if not thousands. They were of all walks of life, of all ages, of various political persuasions, occupations and backgrounds. The 100,000 strong crowd the 1976 Folklife Festival drew was similarly diverse; very different people found common ground for celebrating America’s folkways.

The “Battle to Save West Point” lasted 5 difficult years. It took place alongside the other struggles to secure land and create the Eno River State Park. Margaret and George Pyne, her dearest friend among many, used to raise a glass at victorious moments saying “We have only 5 minutes to celebrate!” Saving West Point had been in part a knock-down, drag-out fight over the core 16 acre historic site. Telegrams were fired off to stop the destruction of the McCown-Mangum House. Ervin Industries sheared the front porch off with a bulldozer, ripped out its antique mouldings, and mowed down the 200 year old cedars lining the original Roxboro Road. The mill, which the Association and Friends of West Point had hoped to restore, collapsed in a flood, and had to be rebuilt from the ground up. The original millstones were stolen with the use of heavy equipment. (Over 50 years later, we will accept them back for the historic site—no questions asked.) 

The tool that saved West Point was an Environmental Impact Statement, through a new law enacted by the Nixon administration, the first time one had ever been used in North Carolina. Of course the statement advocated environmental protection and the need to preserve West Point’s rare flora and fauna. The historical section was its more unusual feature. The Historical Research Committee, a battalion of 10 historians led by Mary Claire Engstrom, worked in haste to describe the history of the 16 acre site. Their documentation was crucial to gain placement on the National Register of Historic Places. “The Story of West Point” written by Jean Anderson with Margaret became the historical section of the Impact Statement.

Duncan Heron, now almost 100, has shared his photos for this Folklife Festival exhibit and captured Margaret making the 1976 speech. He first met her while canoeing the Eno. She was standing on a rock mid-river and told him it was to be dammed. From that day on he was a committed fighter for the river, multiple times the Eno Association’s president. Jean Anderson, now past 100, was there from the very beginning.

Two years ago Margaret posthumously received a high honor from the Daughters of the American Revolution. They honored her with their Women in American History award for her work as an environmentalist and in historic preservation. They placed her in the ranks of Sally Ryde, Rosa Parks, Mahalia Jackson and Laura Bush, among other icons.

In America’s 250th year, in this time where voting rights and immigrants, the environment and science, are all under siege she would want it known that she and Holger came to America as immigrants. They became Americans because they loved this country. He was born in Finland; his first language was Swedish. She was born in India in 1925. As a small child she was deathly ill with malaria. Her ayah, Hannah, nursed her back. Her mother called her “Miss Determination.” Once she had to kill a cobra in the dormitory of her boarding school. As a girl she traversed the Suez Canal 13 times to be schooled in Britain.

The Germans targeted and bombed her school in WWII, so she was sent, alone at 16, in a convoy of ships to Canada, one of which was hit by a torpedo. She studied side-by-side with Holger Nygard at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. She and Holger aided his close Japanese-Canadian friends when they were forced into the internment camp called Tashme. They both earned PhDs in English from the University of California at Berkeley. By the time they came to live by the Eno, they had seen much of the world and its injustices. They saw the beauty of the river with clear eyes and shared a moral calling to protect it into the future.

These are sad facts: West Point on the Eno will be shut down during the 50th anniversary of its momentous opening. A high-rise development is going in next to it and will occupy half of Black Meadow Ridge, an historic part of West Point. Though half of the ridge has been saved, the development straddles the high ground of an Eno tributary. That stream, known as Black Meadow Branch since colonial days, flows directly to the mill to join the millrace. The advisory group, Friends of West Point, was organized in 1974 to rebuild the mill, restore the house, create the photography museum, and guide the operation of the historic site. Over a decade ago they took issue with the Recreation Department about the operation of the historic site and the mill. The City broke off the relationship. Since the Chantal storm, West Point Mill no longer runs.

If Margaret could add to her 1976 address, she would want you to remember a fourth thing, which she said to Al Roker on NBC in 1989:

There won’t be any end to this story. I’m afraid that’s the strange thing about an environmental effort. After the master plan is completed, then there’s going to be the need to safeguard what we’ve got.

She would hope that you not only remember that message, but also act on it.

— Jenny & Kerstin Nygard