The Ivy Creek Natural Area (ICNA) is a 215-acre preserve with 6 miles of walking trails through a mix of pine and hardwood forests, old fields, streams, natural springs, and 2 miles of shoreline on the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir. ICNA is an official site on the VA African American Heritage Trail in recognition of its rich social and agricultural history as a Freedman’s farm dating back to 1870. Hugh Carr, born in slavery, was in his early twenties in 1865 when the Civil War ended and the 13th Amendment abolished slavery. Over the next decade, Carr worked on white men’s farms, saving enough to buy, expand, and build on this property he named River View Farm. Nearby stood the community of Hydraulic, a thriving mill village dating back to the early 1800s. After the Civil War, Hydraulic became the center of the free black community of Union Ridge of which Hugh Carr was a prominent member.