High Voltage, High Tension

Taylor described these people as "ardent and impassioned," "strongly partisan to liberty," "vigorous and more natural than the gentleman planter," possessing "a great natural intelligence" and a "chivalric sense of honor." At the same time, they were just plumb ornery.

Green is the great-great-grandson of John Marshall, the Revolutionary War patriot who became the nation's longest-serving Supreme Court chief justice. Marshall's boyhood home -- now being restored -- is on land that Green farms. The power line as initially proposed goes straight across that land. One branch or another of Green's family has farmed here since Virginia was a colony.

Less important to Green than this past, however, is the future, and that the next three generations of his family feel about the place the same way he does. "I'm very proud of this farm and the family," Green says. "I just wouldn't want to see anything happen to them."

All six of his children -- he's the kind of Virginian who refers to them as the "chirren" -- have made successful lives for themselves in the professional world. Yet three have returned to live and work here, and a fourth is on the way back. Son John runs the cattle operation of Angus and Charolais. Bill, the orchard where city people come to pick their own sweet cherries in June, blueberries in July, peaches in August, and apples in September and October. And Hank, the Christmas trees. This is what Green sees as at risk when he thinks of the partnership between man and nature created by his clan, which now includes 20 grandchildren and a newborn great-grandchild.

It's what he's talking about when he discusses the unpretentious lives his family has had here -- successful enough that all the kids got to college, but hard enough that he remembers how glad he was in 1950 to get the farm's first tractor, so he no longer had to work behind horses. This is what he sees as mortally threatened by the industrial swath of a massive power line.

Gazing out at the mountains that ring his place, you observe that it's harder and harder to find land like this. Green is enough of a Virginia gentleman that when he responds, it is with a smile.

"Yeah, that's just the point," he says. Keeping it together -- "It's a hard thing to do. We've worked a long time to get it. I don't want to see it destroyed. The land is dear to me. Don't want to see it destroyed."

This is what the city folk come out here for, hundreds of them, some weekends, when they come to pick their own fruit. "Surprising how much that appeals to them. Bring your family out. Opportunity to get out in the country." This is what he's talking about as he tells you to "Get into the truck," and takes you to the highest knoll, and says "Look."

Right in front of Marshall's boyhood home is something new: a sign that says, "Fight Dominion's Greed. Say No! We Won't Glow!"

The Uprising

Dominion's original proposal did a remarkable job of uniting foes across lines of class, occupation, race and economic interest.

Developers like Toll Brothers joined with property-rights activists who objected to the use of government power condemning private land for corporate use, to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with preservationists. On the same bus to a Richmond protest sat Prince William County folks from the Dominion Valley subdivision and Fauquier County folks with hundreds of acres. United States congressmen vied with Virginia assemblymen to crowd into anti-power-line photo ops.

"I've never been so popular in my life," says Chris Miller, president of the Piedmont Environmental Council. "People stop me on the street to say thank you."