The forests stalked by the early Long Hunters were of fantastical scope and majesty. Art by David Wright.
The forests that the first Long Hunters penetrated in their explorations in search of furs and deerskins were fantastical in their density, darkness and the girth and height of their magnificent trees.
And as soon as they gained a foothold in those forests, the frontiersmen of the era began cutting them down — first to clear land for farming and then to ship and sell lumber as a commodity. Appalachian Magazine has an account of the impact of the exploitation and plunder of the southern Appalachian forests.
Despite being branded as ‘wild and wonderful,’ the sad reality is that Appalachia’s present-day forests are but a frail shell of what they were only a handful of centuries ago.
Once upon a time not too long ago, the unmolested forests of America’s eastern mountains would have been unrecognizable to its modern-day inhabitants. They were far darker than they are today and home to an incredible number of species whose days were numbered: the beautiful multi-color Carolina Parakeet, the Eastern Bison and the preying Eastern Mountain Lion (the fourth largest cat on the planet), all called the mountains of Southern Appalachia home before many of our ancestors arrived.
Indeed, the modern forests of home are almost unrecognizable compared to the majestic, dense and dark foggy woodland that greeted the first white settlers only a handful of centuries ago….
It was a different world… Art by John Buxton.
West Virginia — which saw enacted the great drama of the Revolutionary War-era struggle between the Long Knives and the Shawnee, Mingo, Delaware and other natives — went from a densely-forested marvel to a post-industrial wasteland in a little more than a century:
The trees, centuries-old colossal mammoths, towered proudly over the Mountain State — standing like skyscrapers of the ancient world, reigning for thousands of years over the majestic and unconquerable land. Older than the Mayflower, many of West Virginia’s white oak and hemlock trees were more than half-a-millennium old — an unimaginable spectacle for the European colonists who first laid eyes on the trees.
Art by Robert W. Griffing
As their Native American predecessors who first inhabited the land, the early colonists who topped the mountain ridges that had protected the enchanted land for ages, lacked the resources or will to destroy the hallowed trees of old.
Unfortunately, within a few generations, the western world had been thrust into an era, which came to be known as the Industrial Revolution; soon, man’s appetite for tangible goods had reached a level that had previously been unthinkable.
Seeking to profit from society’s thirst for stuff, sawmills sprang up throughout the mountains of the newly created state, as armies of rough, strong and desperate men set out, hewing down the ancient landmarks of old. The workers themselves were not villains, but immigrants, laborers, husbands and fathers of hungry children; unaware of their own strength.
By 1920, the entire State of West Virginia had been reduced to an abhorrent desert, more closely resembling a bombed wasteland than a mountain wonderland described as being “almost heaven.”
For the first time in its history, West Virginia was viewed as an eyesore. One visiting writer described the state as “a monotonous panorama of destruction.”
The destruction of the forests built the land and made the world we live in in such comfort and ease — but it’s best to remember that the mighty American Empire was built at a steep ecological price. It is certainly a romantic impulse, and perhaps even a hypocritical one for one who sits and pecks at his plastic keyboard on his wooden desk in another state built in large part on the timber industry — but I can’t help thinking, looking back, that I’d rather have the trees…
Long Hunters wend their way through the Appalachian forests. Art by David Wright.
wayne says
The Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest (USFS) about 100 miles west of Asheville, NC is one of the few remaining stands of eastern forest that was never logged. The immensity of the trees is a revelation. I found a tulip polar so big that 10 adults could fit in the hollow at its base.
I often think of the hypocrisy of our wanting to save the rain forest in Brazil considering what we did to our own forests. Don’t get me wrong; I’m very much in favor of preserving forest lands everywhere on the planet.
JimC says
The hypocrisy is a real factor in efforts to protect the environment. Brazilians, Indonesians, Chinese — none of them much like being told they shouldn’t exploit their natural resources in exactly the way that we did. Of course, if they do, it’s curtains on the planet. The ONLY way to really protect the environment is to make it more profitable NOT to exploit than it is to exploit. Tricky, that…
Black Tyrone says
I know the great Daniel Day Lewis movie, Last of the Mohicans could not be filmed in upstate NY due to inability to locate the “right look” in forest. I am not certain what that means, but same was filmed in North Carolina. Perhaps the forest you tell of was the film’s locale?
JimC says
Think so.
lane batot says
It was also filmed in N. C. because being further South, there was a much longer filming season–something old nit-picking, million-takes Mann needed! In some of the re-shooting scenes done, the leaves were just beginning to change with the fall, so he BARELY got it all done even then!
Matthew says
I once went to Japan with my family. (My brother and wife were visiting her parents and we all went together.) Japan’s the most urbanized place in the world. I remember thinking I’m not a tree hugging hippie type, but I’m sure going to be a Teddy Roosevelt style conservationist.
I don’t regret modern progress, but we have to acknowledge the cost.
JimC says
That’s where I’m at myself.
john roberts says
It’s strange to us to learn that, not just the Puritans, but many other religious settler groups, actually viewed these forests as evil. They invented the term “howling wilderness.” They believed that Satan himself made his home there and his demons (Native Americans) did his work from the forests. They remembered the tame forests of the Old World, subdued for aristocratic hunters and for cultivation. They saw destroying the forest and its inhabitants as holy work.
JimC says
Indeed. More than one commentator observed that the settlers seemed to hate trees.
Betty says
How about the legendary forests of England? The ridge routes established themselves as the easiest way to go because trees were dark and deep and dangerous critters and masterless men haunted them. The description of the West Virginia trees sounds very like tales of Sherwood Forest.
Or how about the forests of Europe? Remnant survivals in former royal hunting preserves.
I can’t call it hypocrisy; more like trying to pass on some wisdom we gained over the years. And the “Save a Tree” mantra is ludicrous. Trees for paper mills are farmed like soybeans now and really can be called a renewable resource, at least for printing – and far less damaging ecologically than the processes that go into manufacturing our computers and power transmission so I can write this to you without touching pen to paper.
The damage is done and cannot be undone. Efforts to save the environment sometimes backfire: doing more damage to the working people than the loss of trees. We miss trees we never were born to see. Just as I miss the beautiful open spaces of the Los Angeles Basin, familiar only in paintings created before 1900, buried now under concrete and tile roofs.
As ever, we don’t know what we got till it’s gone. But who wants to bring the economy to a standstill? Hard to say.
JimC says
Right. All we can do now is to restore as best we can. Crashing the economy in the name of the environment will ultimately just destroy both. No easy answers or solutions.
Paul McNamee says
Along with the dense woodlands, I can only imagine what the abundance of game could have been like. Flocks of fowl darkening the mid-day sky. It’s a wonder.
JimC says
Passenger pigeons…
Keith West says
Agreed. And the Eastern Bison, Eastern Mountain Lion (never heard of it before today), and the Carolina Parakeet.
OTOH, I’ve heard the argument made that flocks of passenger pigeons were so large because the natural predators had been eliminated.
Slightly off-topic, but I was talking with my son yesterday about how airplanes have (unintentionally) brought snakes to islands in the South Pacific were there were none originally. The snakes have decimated entire bird populations.
JimC says
Snakes on a plane. He went there.
lane batot says
Despite the controversy, I believe it is only a matter of time before we have “Eastern Mountain Lions” again. Some say they never were all exterminated. I think they were, and sightings have occurred over the decades from escaped/released captives(you’d be amazed how many “pet” mountain lions there are out there!), as well as the occasional Western transient. A few years ago, one was hit by an SUV in Conneticut–DNA testing proved it was from a wild population in SOUTH FRIKKIN’ DAKOTA! A GREAT book about this animal is available–“Heart Of A Lion”–this animal’s epic journey makes most Disney animal features pale in comparison! Another was shot in Georgia some years ago–DNA tests proved it was from the beleaguered Florida Panther population(Mountain Lion, Cougar, Panther, Painter, Puma, Catamount–all different names for the same critter–confuses a lot of people…..). A couple have been shot in Kentucky recently, and one showed up on a Tennessee camera trap–so they ARE reestablishing(YEEHAW!)–but as to when we have a stable breeding population–that could be awhile. All along the Appalachian chain is now, again, EXCELLENT cougar habitat. One of the FEW large predator success stories in modern times, and these elusive cats did it all by theirselves, without guvmint intervention or taxpayers dollars! Although I’d personally rather MY tax dollars were spent bringing back large critters, as opposed to politician vacations and the like……
JimC says
good stuff. We should acknowledge that a lot of really significant improvement has been made in the past 50 years.
deuce says
Native Americans purposely set fires in forests to clear out underbrush, thus maximizing habitat for deer and bison. There are early accounts from Virginia about being able to drive carriages through the forests of giant chestnut trees because of the lack of undergrowth. Natural poisons from the chestnuts helped as well.
Plains Indians burned off prairies to kill trees in order to maximise bison habitat. Much of North America was a “Garden of Eden” only in the sense of a *managed* garden.
BTW, the largest city in North America at the dawn of the 17th century was just discovered 90mi west of me:
http://www.kansascity.com/news/state/kansas/article145026439.html
JimC says
Need to post on that discovery. Are we in Marchers of Valhalla territory here?
deuce says
The Khemuri of Khemu in “Marchers of Valhalla” were pre-Indians related to the Stygians. A slightly closer parallel to an REH yarn would be “The Thunder-Rider”, but even it bears more resemblance to the “Lost Pueblo” to be found in western Kansas:
http://www.archaeology.org/issues/110-1311/trenches/1397-off-the-grid-kansas-pueblo-el-cuartelejo
In many ways. Etzanoa was the plains equivalent of Cahokia, but without the huge mounds.
wayne says
Native Americans managed grasslands by burning them periodically to stop the growth of tree seedlings. There were large areas of the Carolina Piedmont and the Arkansas River Valley that were managed in this way to provide grazing areas for buffalo and elk. In the last 100 or so years we’ve planted trees and windbreaks across the great plains to the point where it’s hard to imagine what the treeless sea of grass must have looked like in most places in the time of the great buffalo herds. As for wild game, those giant-tree mature forests are not necessarily the best habitat for critters (Scots-Irish corruption of “creatures”) such as deer and turkey that prefer an edge habitat with plenty of low growing browse. Old growth giants do provide the den trees necessary for everything from woodpeckers to black bears. We try our best to substitute little boxes as nesting sites (bluebirds) for the hollows those great trees once provided.
Parts of The Last of the Mohicans were filmed on the Biltmore Estate near Asheville and in Pisgah National Forest. They had to search long and hard to find the right spots.
Hillbilly Nick says
As Deuce mentioned the Natives managed their various living areas to benefit their tribe. More research has gotten into this in the last 20 years than the hundreds since contact. Not so much the dumb savages, eh?
About 10-20 miles north of me is a stand of old growth forest, part of the Cattaraugus Creek basin. It was too rugged to log when they were cutting everything in sight for pot ash to make concrete. One thing that makes me happy is the forests here continue to expand, an accidental effect of most kids moving to the cities upon graduation and industrial farming with equipment too large for smaller fields. BTW, Cattaraugus Creek is considered one of the top trout/steelhead/salmon destinations in the world. Coincidence?
JimC says
Coincidence? I think not.
lane batot says
Wayne beat me to the punch about the Joyce Kilmer National Forest, and the adjoining Slick Rock Creek wilderness area, where I backpacked many years ago. The MOST BEAUTIFUL water ANYWHERE I’ve ever been(as well as the magnificent trees!)–THIS is one place in the East to visit if you want to see still existing true virgin timber, like it was “in the day”!. Awe inspiring!…As for “Last Of The Mohicans”–it was filmed ALL OVER Western North Carolina–the places Wayne mentioned and many others. Attempts were made to film in some of the restricted wilderness areas, but the N. C. forestry folks refused them–too much alteration and disturbance was involved–good for them! Where the fort scene was filmed was an area scheduled to be lumbered anyway–LOTM bought the lumbering rights, lumbered and built the fort, then replanted and returned the area to Nature far better than typical lumber companies do, so good on ’em too! That area is well grown back up now–unrecognizable!
JimC says
As always, great story.
John M Burton says
My ancestors were frontiersmen of Southwest Virginia in the mid to late 1700’s. I am working on manuscripts for my new book about them. The Looney,Bryan/Bryant,Bledsoe,Tate,Campbell and Jobe families. I enjoy this site.
JimC says
Thanks for stopping by the campfire John. You have illustrious ancestry there. Will be most interested in hearing more about your book as it develops. A guest post is always welcome, too.