Salvatore J. Cangiano enjoys a reputation as a shrewd land speculator and developer, one who isn’t shy about pressing his ownership rights through litigation — “I’m very competitive” — or, perhaps, just by sheer force of will. And pretty much all those descriptors were on display in the rough-and-tumble struggle that ended with him in possession of Wheatland Farms in Loudoun County, Virginia.

Consider this: As Cangiano prepared to go to settlement on the purchase of the spectacular 549-acre property in spring 2005, according to court records, he was unknowingly recorded in a conversation discussing his concerns about contractual obligations the sellers had made, including an obligation to host weddings at the Wheatland Manor House.

“Hey, anybody gives me a hard time, I go there and lock the buildings. I’ll put everybody off the property. I deal New Jersey style. I’ll just lock everybody out. Nobody is allowed here. Go sue me.”

When the Wheatland deal crumbled and dissolved into litigation, Cangiano was asked about the conversation under oath: “I don’t know what ‘New Jersey style’ means. I really don’t know what that means. I deal honestly, morally, and ethically. That’s how I deal. I hope everybody else would.”

Recently, in an interview, Cangiano laughed when asked about the conversation saying: “That was a levity.” Just two guys joking around, he explained.

However, when Cangiano’s attorney asked Ava Abramowitz, the former co-owner of Wheatland Farms, what she understood “New Jersey style” to mean, she testified: “Ask Jimmy Hoffa what ‘New Jersey style’ means. We were petrified. We did not know how to handle this situation.”

“Are you saying you thought Mr. Cangiano was threatening to kill you or your husband?” Cangiano’s attorney asked.

“No,” she replied. “I am not saying that at all. I’m just saying I don’t even think of New Jersey style. He’s a man who does.”

Halfway between the battlefield at Gettysburg and Thomas Jefferson’s home at Monticello, U.S. Route 15 passes through Loudoun County, an area that may be less known, but is no less steeped in American history.

Over the decades, Loudoun has been a colonial farming community, a Civil War battleground, a second home for presidents and statesmen, and a rural escape for long-haul commuters to Washington, D.C., and its inner suburbs. And like many other historical areas across the country, in Loudoun County preservationists and developers are struggling to determine the future of the land and the character of the county.

In May, preservationists won an important battle, when 175 miles of Route 15 in Virginia became part of the Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area — a federal designation aimed at preserving the historic region and promoting tourism. Although the designation does not affect development regulations, it will help to foster pride in the history of the area, said Cate Magennis Wyatt, the founder and president of the nonprofit Journey Through Hallowed Ground Partnership. “Certainly there will be a greater pride in place when Congress and the president say this region is critically important to the telling of the American story,” she said.

The story of the land along Route 15 begins with Native Americans, who traversed what came to be called the Carolina Trail centuries before Europeans arrived and forced them out. Quakers were among Loudoun’s first settlers, establishing settlements in the 1720s in Waterford, Lincoln, Hamilton, and Unison. Germans from Maryland and Pennsylvania, Scots-Irish, Dutch, and English followed.