Camp Peary Camp Peary is an approximately 9 , 000 acre military reservation in York County near Williamsburg , Virginia . Officially referred to as an Armed Forces Experimental Training Activity ( AFETA ) under the auspices of the Department of Defense , Camp Peary is rumored to host a covert CIA training facility known as " The Farm " . Camp Peary has a sister facility , " The Point " , located in Hertford , North Carolina . Porto Bello , the historic hunting lodge of Lord Dunmore , last royal governor of Virginia , is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is located on the grounds of Camp Peary . Location . Comprising 9 , 275 acres ( 38 km ) of land , of which about 8 , 000 acres ( 32 km ) are unimproved or only partially improved . The 100 acre ( 400 , 000 m ) Biglers Millpond occupies the site adjacent to the York River . It has been closed to the public since 1951 , and as of 2007 access still is highly restricted . The majority of Camp Peary falls within York County , though a small portion of the reservation near Skimino Creek at the western edge is located in James City County . World War II , relocations of residents . During World War II , beginning in 1942 , the United States Navy took over a large area on the north side of the Virginia Peninsula in York County , Virginia which became known as Camp Peary , initially for use as a Seabee training base . The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway ( C & O ) extended a spur track from its Richmond - Newport News main line tracks to the site from nearby Williamsburg and established Magruder Station near the former unincorporated town of Magruder . There is information about life at the Camp and the German PoW s in the Herman Recht papers held by the College of William and Mary , a set of letters written by a clerk at the Camp . As part of the process of converting the property to a military reservation , all residents of the entire towns of Magruder and Bigler ' s Mill had to vacate . The town of Magruder was a traditionally African - American community established for freedmen after the American Civil War . It had been named for Confederate General John B . Magruder . A civil war field hospital had occupied the site of Bigler ' s Mill near the York River . Although the graves in the church cemetery were not moved , many of the residents and the local Mount Gilead Baptist Church were relocated to the Grove community , located on U . S . Route 60 in adjacent James City County a few miles away , where a number of displaced residents from an area near Lackey known simply as " the Reservation " had earlier relocated under similar circumstances during World War I when what is now the Naval Weapons Station Yorktown was created . Seabee training . The first World War II Seabee recruits were the men who helped build Boulder Dam , America ' s highways and New York City skyscrapers . At Naval Construction Training Centers and Advanced Base Depots established on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts , Seabees were taught military discipline and the use of light arms . At the outset of the War , the preliminary training of the Seabees had been carried out at various Naval Training Stations throughout the country . In Virginia , after completing three weeks of boot training at Camp Allen , and later its successor , Camp Peary , the Seabees were formed into construction battalions or other types of construction units . Soon , however , another mission had been identified for Camp Peary . All preliminary and advanced specialized training for Seabees was changed to be conducted at Camp Allen and Camp Bradford at Norfolk , Virginia , where both were an integral part of the Naval Operating Base . German prisoners - of - war . The mission of Camp Peary changed as the war progressed and a new need presented itself to the U . S . Navy . It became a stockade for special German prisoners - of - war ( POWs ) . The POWs kept at Camp Peary were not just an ordinary sort , but rather , many came from captured German submarine and ship crews which the Germans had thought lost at sea with crews presumed dead . It was important for Nazi authorities to be unaware of their capture , since that also meant secret code books thought lost at sea may also have been compromised . Thus , extra secrecy was necessary . Many of the former POWs stayed in Virginia and the United States after the war , and became naturalized as U . S . citizens . Post - World War II use . Turned loose by the Navy in 1946 , Camp Peary became a Virginia state forestry and game reserve for five years . A reservoir which had been built on the upper reaches of Queen ' s Creek to supply the substantial fresh water needs of Camp Peary when it was a Seabee base was divested to the City of Williamsburg . The Waller Mill Reservoir formed the basis for the city ' s Waller Mill Park , although the park is located north of the city limits in York County . A portion of the abandoned Chesapeake and Ohio Railway spur from the Peninsula Extension main line just east of near Ewell Station to the base ( also built during World War II ) is now a recreational rail trail . Then , in 1951 , the U . S . Navy returned to the property , securing the portion north of the highway which was State Route 168 at the time , and announced it closed to the public ; it has been that way ever since . In June 1961 , two months after the Bay of Pigs Invasion , the Navy announced it was officially opening a new facility at Harvey Point base , in Hertford , North Carolina . A spokesman said that all four branches of the military would conduct " testing and evaluation of various classified materials and equipment " at the new site . He added that some of the training " now being done at Camp Peary , Va . , will be transferred to Harvey Point " " Camp Peary and areas near it were the primary setting for a 2007 novel by David Baldacci titled " Simple Genius " in which , as Baldacci admits , he took certain liberties with the details of place and specific activities of the area . The Farm . Camp Peary later became well known as " The Farm " , a training facility for the Central Intelligence Agency , although this has never been formally acknowledged by the U . S . government . The portion of the original World War II Seabee base which is north of Interstate 64 has remained closed to the public since 1951 . However , the roads and many structures of Magruder and Bigler ' s Mill are apparently still there and many are occupied . An airport with a runway was added to the facility near the site of Bigler ' s Mill . Former CIA officer Bill Wagner attended a three week long interrogation course at The Farm in 1970 . He claims that it was the agency ' s " premier course " , and that volunteers played the role of interrogation subjects in order to be guaranteed seats in future classes . Interrogators - in - training practiced techniques such as sleep deprivation , deliberately tainted food , and mock executions . According to Wagner , the course was dropped from the CIA training curriculum after the Watergate scandal , due to increased attention being paid to CIA practices . In 1972 , the " Virginia Gazette " newspaper of Williamsburg reported that CIA officers were trained as assassins on base . The CIA replied that it was nonsense . " None of its people , " the agency said , " had ever been trained or used as assassins . "