The Brandywine Conservancy completed a goal recently by purchasing a 100-acre parcel of land. The land is the last of five parcels of historically significant properties the conservancy and their partners were trying to acquire in the Brandywine Battlefield National Historic Landmark area.The parcel owned by the Odell family was purchased for about $8 million, reported George Elser, an attorney for Roberta Odell and family members, in an interview last week.

In March, the Brandywine Conservancy announced that it needed $10 million to purchase the last remaining acres of open land in the Brandywine Battlefield area.

While $7 million had already been raised over the years with the help of partners, it still needed $3 million towards the purchase of the 113-acre Odell property and to provide an endowment for it permanent preservation.

Now the conservancy has purchased 100 acres of the parcel. Officials with the conservancy said that details of the purchase and future plans would be released at a news conference June 26.

The Battle of Brandywine is considered the largest military engagement of the Revolutionary War. More than 26,000 troops on Sept. 11, 1777, were engaged in the fighting, which ultimately led to the British occupying Philadelphia and the Continental Army spending the winter at Valley Forge. A 10-square-mile area was designated a National Historic Landmark by the federal government in 1961. Over the years as sprawl threatened to absorb the battlefield, a coalition of state, local and historical agencies was formed to try and save the last remaining parcels of land in the vicinity of the battlefield. About 400 acres in an area known as the Meetinghouse Road Corridor were identified for preservation. The land with open fields and rolling hills looks much the same as it did in 1777.

About 40 percent or 2,600 acres of the 10-square-mile battlefield is being protected by a variety of conservation measures including easements and outright purchase.