Settlement is expected next month, but the preserve will not be immediately open to the public.
Located about six miles west of West Chester, the roughly rectangular property stretches nearly four miles as the crow flies. It starts at Route 162 across from the former Embreeville State Hospital complex and extends south, reaching almost to Route 842.
It encompasses rolling hills, hollows and valleys, meadows and uplands, fields of grains, forests, marshes, ponds, riparian woodlands framing streams too small to have a name, and a long, lovely stretch of the west branch of the Brandywine Creek.
"It's huge and diverse," said Morrison. "And remote - there are places on that property where there is no evidence of the 20th century."
At the northern edge, a chirping cedar waxwing, its black mask resplendent in the morning sun, flitted effortlessly through an enormous sycamore tree, the leaves creating a soft green canopy across the Brandywine.
Along the creek banks, an exuberant crowd of youngsters from Avon Grove Middle School were launching canoes into the chilly water, forming a haphazard flotilla as the current carried them downstream.
Earlier, Zeke Hubbard, owner of Northbrook Canoe Co., was barking out instructions to more than 100 students, all wearing orange life-jackets and fully prepared to get wet.
He warned about low-hanging branches. "Don't lean backward - you'll get stuck in a tree," he said. "Lean forward."
"Brown runs you aground - that's shallow water," he said. "Follow the green!"
Nearby, song sparrows were singing, red-winged blackbirds darted through the meadows, and overhead a red-tailed hawk rode the thermals, spiraling higher into a brilliant blue sky.
