Spring 1995

Indiana’s Forests One Hundred Years Ago

From the proceedings of~lndiana Academy of Science, 1895.

Over the greater part of this state were spread dense forests of tall trees -heavy timber- whose limbs met, and branches were so interwoven that but occasionally, could the sunlight find entrance. There was little or no undergrowth in the heaviest woods and the gloom of these dense shades and its accompanying silence was terribly oppressive. Mile upon mile, days' journey upon days' journey, stretched those gloomy shades amid giant columns and green arches reared by nature through centuries of time. The only interruption were the beds of water-courses; the poorer hill-sides covered with underbrush; the smaller growth of less productive uplands; the site of an extensive windfall, the record of a tornado’s passage; the small area of second-growth timber marking the former clearing for some Indian camp; the more or less extensive patches of meadow, the result of the destruction of the forest by Indian fires. To the west, in the valley of the Wabash, were wide meadows covered with long grass, in the northern third of our territory were prairies and sloughs alternating with wooded sand-hills and reedy swamps, imperfectly drained by a network of sluggish streams, which, in turn, gave place to extensive marshes toward Lake Michigan.

The southern portion of the slate was more heavily timbered. Perhaps nowhere could America show more magnificent forests of deciduous trees, or more noble specimens of characteristic forms than existed in the valleys of the Wabash and Whitewater. The trees decreased in size to the northward, those along the lakes being noticeably inferior. Coniferous trees were few in number and confined to restricted areas. Those found were poor representatives of their species. The forests were made up of many kinds of trees growing together indiscriminately. Here and there a certain group or occasionally a species was found predominating, in various localities the character of the forest was different. While oak, ash, hickory, maple, beech and elm were prevailing trees, they varied much in number and proportion. In some places the tulip poplars were very numerous, the trees often attaining great size - the largest .tree of the primitive forest. Forty-two kinds of trees in the Wabash valley attained a height above a hundred feet; the tallest recorded being a tulip poplar 190 feet high. It was twenty-five feet in circumference and ninety-one feet to the first limb. Many thousands grew over the state measuring from three and a half to ten feet in diameter. Numbers of sweet gums in the more fertile ground in the southern part of the state contended with the tulip poplar in height, and in beauty and symmetry exceeded it. They sometimes attained a height of 150 feet and a diameter of four feet, often preserving almost the same size to the first limb.

In the oak woods there were giants, too; the red, scarlet, burr and white oaks reaching a girth of ten to twenty feet, and often a height of 125 to 150 feet. One instance is reported of a scarlet oak 181 feet high. In the southern part of the state, too, the sweet buckeye attains great size, often being three and a half to four feet in diameter, with a trunk as straight as a column, and reaching a total height of over 100 feet. One example of this species is unique. It is the tree from which was made the celebrated buckeye canoe of the Harrison presidential campaign of 1840. The tree grew in the southeast corner of Rush county, and is said to have been, when standing, twenty-seven feet nine inches in circumference and ninety feet from the ground to the first limb. Here and there, quite thickly scattered, were to be found groves of the finest black walnut trees the world has ever known. Some of the groves were quite extensive, containing hundreds of trees, individuals of which were four to six feet in diameter and 100 to 150 feet high.

In the river valleys, along the streams, the great size of the sycamore was noticeable. This was the largest of the hardwood trees, reaching a maximum height of 140 to 165 feet and often measuring five to ten feet in diameter. Keeping these company were the cottonwoods, the larger of which measured five to eight feet in diameter and 130 to 165 feet high. The beauty of all the trees of this region was the white elm. Its diameter was three to five feet and its height sometimes 120 feet or more, the ambits often spreading over 100 feet.

REMOVAL OF FOREST

The pioneer's first work was to cut away the trees and build a cabin. As each cabin was built it foreshadowed a clearing extending more and more each year. The line of the Ohio and the Wabash formed the basis for the advance of settlement. The axe and the fire performed their work. Great deadenings gave promise of a lively time log-rolling next season. Giant tulip poplars, monster black walnuts, and oaks, ash, wild cherry and sweet gum, the largest of their fellows, were rolled into heaps and burned. To this in time was added the demand for fuel, for lumber and for timber to supply all the drafts which human wants could make upon the forest, not only for our own population, but for other states and other lands. Thus were our forests destroyed. Now, except in a few localities, there remains no virgin forest.

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