Big white oak trees of the past

Giant oaks of the primeval forest

I came across an item in an old newspaper about a very large white oak that was harvested in Breckenridge County, Kentucky. It piqued my curiosity, so I located the stories of a few more big oaks that were cut from the virgin forests of the greater Ohio River valley. I've quoted four of the news items below.

As large as these white oaks were, they did not rival the size of a white oak that was cut in Holden, West Virginia, in 1938. That giant was reported to be the largest white oak in the world. It was 9 feet in diameter and nearly 100 feet tall, and it was estimated to contain 15,000 board feet of lumber.

Big Oak Log

It required ten horses to haul a big white oak log which was brought to town last week, by T. W. Sanders, to be shipped to Evansville[, Indiana, down the Ohio River]. The log measured out 1,519 feet, was 49 inches in diameter at the small end and 54 inches at the large end. It belonged to the timber firm of Cooper & Williams and was cut on a tract of land near Tar Springs. One of the finest lot of oak timber ever cut in the county was hauled to town this year from this tract of land, many logs out of several hundred averaging a thousand feet by measure.

Source: The Breckenridge news. (Cloverport, Ky.) November 02, 1904

Paris, [Kentucky,] May 17 [1900].--A big oak that has for many years been an object of Riley Howse in Nicholas county has been sold to Ossian Edwards, of Paris, for $110. It measured forty-five feet in circumference and seven feet five inches in diameter. Large crowds witnessed the fall of the monster tree.

Source: Crittenden press. (Marion, Ky.) May 24, 1900

A Big White Oak
From the Chicago Tribune

A short time ago a New-York firm sent an agent to Scottsburg, Ind., to purchase a large white oak tree, which measured 27 feet in circumference. They bought the tree for $75, and set to work to get out as large a board as possible. The tree was felled and ripped up by means of a crosscut saw. They got out one board that was 10 inches thick, 5 feet 2-1/2 inches wide at the butt and 4 feet 8-1/2 inches wide at the top and 32 feet long. This board was loaded upon a broad-tread wagon to which two yoke of oxen and eight horses were hitched, and it took one whole day to remove it one and a half miles. This was probably the largest white oak tree in the United States.

Source: The New York Times, April 7, 1889

The largest white oak tree ever cut in the United States came out of Trumbull county, Ohio, a few years ago. It was delivered to a timber mill, and measured 62 feet in length and seven feet through, and contained 7,365 feet of lumber, board measure. It was located by Mr. Helman's buyers on C. K. Shipman's farm in Gustavus, Ohio, and $100 bought it. The Helman Company dressed the stick down to 30 x 30 inches, 62 feet long and shipped it to New York, where it is now used as a dredge anchor.

Source: Reading Eagle, Feb. 2, 1908

Big Oak Tree State Park

An important place for me to visit

I'll be 58 next month, and I've been thinking about some things I'd like to see and do during my 58th year. I must admit that some of these things could/should have been done long ago -- but better late than never, no?

One of my goals is to visit Big Oak Tree State Park, in extreme southeastern Missouri. I've crossed the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers at Cairo, Illinois, dozens of times. However, I've never taken the time to turn off the main road and drive 25 miles south to the park. I'm always in a hurry, on a trip to visit my family.

The park has a very interesting history. This area, already a flood-plains forest, sank up to 50 feet in some places during the great New Madrid Earthquake of 1811. Swamps became swampier. As settlers populated the area, they recognized the agricultural potential of the rich, alleuvial soil, and a century of reclamation began, with the goal of creating as much farmland as possible.

By the 1930s, nearly all of the swamps had been drained and nearly all of the forest had been cleared. One tract in Mississippi County, soon to be logged, contained the largest bur oak tree that has ever been known. Public sentiment was aroused, and a statewide effort began to save the big bur oak and to preserve a remnant of Missouri's great forest of the Mississippi floodplain.

Because of the Great Depression, the state of Missouri did not have enough funds to purchase the acreage where the tree grew. With a combination of state funds, private donations, and the generosity of concerned citizens who gave what they could, enough money was raised to buy 1007 acres of virgin hardwood forest in Mississippi County. This purchase included the tract of land with the giant bur oak tree. In 1938, the Big Oak Tree Park was dedicated.

The bur oak fell in the 1950s. Its death at the advanced age of 396 was attributed to lightning strikes and rot. The tract of land where it grew is now a National Natural Landmark. The National Park Service describes the area as "the only sizable tract of essentially virgin wet-mesic bottomland habitat."

In addition to the champion bur oak, the park has been a home to other state and national champion trees as well.  Missouri State Parks information says that "...trees in the park are unsurpassed in the state for their size, with a canopy averaging 120 feet and with several trees more than 130 feet tall. Five trees qualify as state champions in their species; two others rank as national champions."

The park is attractive to bird-watchers as well as tree-lovers. Around 150 species of birds have been observed there, including some very rare species that have not recently been seen -- and that brings me to a sad ending for this story.

It seems that the park's forest is not in good health. According to an article in American Forests, the old trees are dying and seedlings are not growing. The cane brake is also dying.

Part of the problem is a lake that was built in the park in 1959, destroying the natural swamp that had been there. Drainage systems within the park, designed to prevent flooding of nearby farmland in wet weather, have deprived the ecosystem of the water it needs to sustain itself. Beaver dams were dynamited, also increasing the drainage. Foresters are trying to correct these mistakes now, but it may be too late for the forest to recover.

So I must visit Big Oak Tree State Park sometime soon -- as soon as possible. 

Images in this post are from Wikipedia. The map is from the article "Big Oak Tree State Park" and the photo is from an upload page titled "Big Oak Tree State Park Boardwalk". I highly recommend viewing the full-resolution version (3.96 MB ) of the photo above. Thank you to Knowledgeum, the photographer.

The Amazon Rain Forest in 1920

Old-growth, tropical forests of Brazil in the early 1900s

The following description of the Amazon rain forest is quoted from a 1920 geography textbook. I don't know if the authors had ever traveled to the Brazilian tropics -- probably not -- but they did write quite vividly about the "feel" of the forest there.

The Amazon forest is a good type of the tropical forest, where plants, encouraged by the heat and dampness, grow luxuriantly in the rich soil. Not only is the rainfall heavy, but evaporation is checked by the dense vegetation, so that the forest reeks with moisture. Therefore, at night, when the temperature falls, such heavy dews collect that the plants are wet, as by a rain.

In these woods, there is an occasional giant tree reaching to a height of from one hundred and eighty to two hundred feet, and with a circumference of from twenty to forty feet. The lower limbs may be as much as a hundred feet from the ground.

Between these giant trees are smaller ones struggling to rise out of the somber shade ito the sunlight. There are also many shrubs, bushes, ferns, and vines, the latter twining about the tree trunks, or hanging over the lower limbs.

The woods present much the same appearance throughout the year. There is no time when all the trees send forth their leaves and blossoms; nor is there a time when all the leaves change color and fall to the ground. Some of the trees blossom throughout the year; others have their blossoms at regular seasons; thus flowers and fruits my be seen at all times of the year.

In such a forest there is dense gloom and silence, broken now and then by the crash of a falling tree, or the sorrowful notes of birds, or the howling of monkeys, or perchance, the shrill scream of an animal which has fallen a prey to the boa.

Some of the trees of the forest produce fruits and nuts, others valuable timber or dyewoods. In fact, the word Brazil comes from the name of a dyewood found in the Amazon forests. Another valuable plant is the vanilla, whose beans are of value in making perfumes and flavoring extracts. Many of the Indians near the rivers make long journeys into the forest to collect the products, both for their own use and for shipment down the Amazon.

Source: World Geographies: Second Book (pp. 267-268) by Ralph S. Tarr and Frank M. McMurry. Copyrighted in 1920 and published by the MacMillan Company, New York, in 1922,

Barn building in the days of the primeval forests

Dutch barns and timber barns of the Catskills

John Burroughs wrote about some of the old barns in the Catskills that he remembered. He described those the Dutch built with low eaves and a high ridgepole to create an immense haymow. Then he described the sturdy timber barns built by other early settlers. Both contained mighty hand-hewn beams, cut in the primeval forests:

Then the great timbers of these [unpainted timber] barns and the Dutch barn, hewn from maple or birch or oak trees from the primitive woods, and put in
place by the combined strength of all the brawny arms in the neighborhood when the barn was raised,-timbers strong enough and heavy enough for docks and quays, and that have absorbed the odors of the hay and grain until they look ripe and mellow and full of the pleasing sentiment of the great, sturdy, bountiful interior! The "big beam" has become smooth and polished from the hay that has been pitched over it, and the sweaty, sturdy forms that have crossed it. One feels that he would like a piece of furniture-a chair, or a table, or a writing-desk, a bedstead, or a wainscoting-made from these long-seasoned, long-tried, richly toned timbers of the old barn.

Excerpted from In the Catskills, Selections from the Writings of John Burroughs, by John Burroughs (1837-1921) with illustrations from photographs by Clifton Johnson. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin , 1910.

Image from The Architectural Record, January-June, 1921 (p. 94)

I have my own memories of hay-polished wood. When I was a child, we put up the hay in haystacks. There were two machines we used in the process that had wooden teeth more or less the size of an 8-foot 2x4". The tips of the wooden teeth were so smooth to the touch that they felt oddly soft. When I ran my fingers along the wood, not a splinter, not a single snag could be felt. And yet, when the wooden teeth were first put on, they were just rough lengths of wood, tapered at one end to a blunt point.

Kentucky's primeval forest

The forest before the white settlers came

The following passage is quoted from Kentucky, The Pioneer State of the West by Thomas Crittendon Cherry.

Before the coming of the earliest explorers and settlers, Kentucky was a vast wilderness and rugged waste still unchanged by the hand of civilized man. It was bounded by the broad Ohio on the north, to the east lay the cloud-capped Allegheny Mountains, and to the south the endless forests and streams of what is now Tennessee, while the mighty "Father of Waters" washed its western shores. This territory, comprising over forty thousand square miles, shield-shaped, and sloping westward, made a changing scene of hills and mountains, rivers and valleys, forests and open stretches of fertile lands called "Barrens."

Numerous rivers, choked by fallen trees and fed by pure springs wound in and out down the fertile valleys. Most of these streams rose in the mountains or highlands and after wandering in many directions poured their waters into the beautiful Ohio. Here and there the silence was broken by rippling shoals or roaring waterfalls which mingled their music with the discordant cries of wild animals and fowls and the war whoop of roving bands of savages.

Beneath the everlasting hills lay vast beds of coal, iron ore, and pools of oil, and from its surface grew endless forests of finest timber, all waiting the coming of the white man and the needs of civilization. Many wild flowers and shrubs bloomed in abundance everywhere, fertile stretches of open land were covered with clover and wild pea vines, and beautiful birds of many varieties gladdened the scene with their songs.

Fish of many kinds swarmed in the creeks and rivers and swans, ducks, geese and many other native water fowls floated upon the peaceful waters or wound their flight from stream to stream and lake to lake in large flocks. Pigeons in countless numbers and beautifully colored parrakeets [sic] swarmed in the forests, and great owls uttered their solemn notes in the twilight of the dismal woods. Numerous flocks of wild turkeys fed upon an abundance of acorns, hazelnuts, chestnuts, wild berries, and the many varieties of insects that infested the woods and Barrens.

Dense forests crowded to the waters edge and reaching back in endless confusion, through valleys and uphill slopes, were matted in many places with a tangled undergrowth of bushes, briars and vines that made difficult a passage even for the wild animals. Giant forests of oak and tulip, beech and ash, sycamore and linden, cedar and pine, and many other varieties of trees grew so close that their leafy branches spread a canopy through which the rays of the sun could scarcely penetrate, producing twilight effects even at high noon.

Through these forests roamed immense herds of buffalo, deer, and elk, which broke out paths or trails to watering places, salt licks, and barren patches of land covered with wild grasses.

Many other animals roamed the woods, and birds in great abundance swarmed in the forests. Panther and wild cat crouched in the dense canebrakes or on overhanging cliffs ready to spring upon their unsuspecting victims. Bear and large packs of wolves that lived in the caves prowled through the forests in search of their prey. A solemn stillness reigned everywhere except when broken by a confusion of forest sounds. Nature seemed to have heaped up her many bounties in this new land to make it a fit dwelling place for God's wild creatures.

The ruthless hand of civilized man had not yet disturbed the natural beauty and freshness of this wonderful scene. For unnumbered years, the seasons came and went but there was none to plow, sow and reap as civilized men are used to do, but the forests, each year, yielded a rich harvest of wild fruits and nuts. No roar of engines, no rumble of machinery, no hum of commerce nor ringing of church and school bells broke the stillness of this wild region.

To this picturesque land of natural wealth and rugged beauty, nearly two hundred years ago, came the first white explorers, hunters, and settlers, with rifle and ax to convert it into a land now inhabited by civilized man and ruled by the arts and institutions of civilized life.

From Kentucky, The Pioneer State of the West by Thomas Crittendon Cherry. Published by D.C. Heath and Company of Boston, New York, and Chicago, 1923.

Photo credit: Appalachia Forest Action Project volunteers looking at "Big Red," an old-growth red oak tree on Joe Aliff's property. Photographed by Mary Hufford, 1994. From Tending the Commons: Folklife and Landscape in Southern West Virginia at the Library of Congress.