Old Tree Carvings Markers Codes KGC

[TurtleisGold]

I've been sitting on all these old photos for far too long. Pictures taken at least 12 years ago on an old crappy Motorola Razor flip phone. Trees at the cache site have long been destroyed from a tornado that came through. I might have the only photographic evidence that these markers ever existed. I just wanted to share these pictures, they're of no use to me anymore. Trees are no longer standing, and area is impassable with fallen debris from the tornado, that no one cleaned up. Half of the area is Private Property, a portion is Amish land, the rest is a national park. Ask questions etc, I'm just sharing these as a cross reference for other hunters. Lots of "JJ" Anchors, 13s, B's, "H" tunnel signs, depth charts, compass readings, could be any and all. Please view pictures.

 

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[TurtleisGold]

So, this area of interest is in the Shawnee Forest in Southern IL. Specifically on Cedar Lake. Cedar Lake is a man made lake, with vast networks of caves, now under water, when the valley was flooded to artificially create a drinking water source. One end of the valley was damned up, to flood certain areas, covering the caves under 50+ feet of water in some parts. There is a strict NO Diving policy in the Lake, enforced by Park Rangers. The boundary lines of the Lake are very questionable. There's BLM (Bureau of Land Management), private property, and Amish homesteaded land, all attached to the lake.

 

[TurtleisGold]

Here's some good depth chart maps of the Lake, which used to be a Valley, prior to the Lake being filled

 

[TurtleisGold]

Areas of Interest are the RED CIRCLED AREA. This is where all previous Beech Trees were carved, all a very close proximity to each other. ORANGE AREA is Amish property, they also own part of the north end of the Lake, deepest part. PURPLE line, is the artificial man made Dam, which keeps the Lake filled. No DAM, equals thr ability to walk in the caves. BLUE CIRCLE is old abandoned property with Zero upkeep of land for multiple years. RED circle is part on BLM, part on Blue property. I searched hard, and could not find any records of who owned property. All YELLOW LINES, are areas of caves, concentrated underwater.

If someone should be inclined, you can access the RED area from the Cove Holloway Trailhead off Dutch Ridge Road.

 

[TurtleisGold]

Here's a MAP layout, of where the Trees used to sit, prior to the Tornado. Hand drawn, and topography overlap.

Here's more, reference pictures

All GREEN dots were trees with many numerous carvings. All were so old they fell down in tornado of 2013 or 14, don't remember which.

YELLOW circled Green was Sunlight Nightlight Turtle Sun Rays tree. Overlooked lake. Turtle on top, sunlight reverse carve underneath.

Orange circle Green was all blaze axe tree. The "C" with dots, the 13, B, anything straight and axe looking. The anchor J and M were on same tree.

The others are labeled closetes to what the green dot is.

PURPLE = Hoyos. 1st one by Red Circle looked directly at a face in the rocks. Looked out through hoyo across small part of lake at face in cliff. Other 2 Hoyos had chimney Hoyos and windows, most looked directly up. One was called Moon Room. Other was notorious for large camping parties inside, destruction graffiti etc. Probably was important but destroyed.

457 Foot tree had JM anchor too, this one was the flourished J that's shaped like a Y. This had all the Last Step symbols on it too.

H TUNNEL heart tree, was heavily most carved tree. Top to bottom, back and front, grafted branches pointing towards face, and cave backfilled with sand. All Hearts, turtle pointing with long legs and cliff with hole in ground carves.

 

[TurtleisGold]

On last set of pictures, RED Circle is area of interest with Trees and Hoyos etc, Blue line is Private Property, unknown owner. Green Line is trail dividing both halves.

 

[TurtleisGold]

I'm just going to Post my Notes, pictures etc, see if anything makes sense to you.

 

[TurtleisGold]

All on 1 Tree. The "H" Tunnel graft tree. Had lots of depth markers, heart carvings, horses, etc. Lots of numbers on tree, really deep, mostly healed

 

[TurtleisGold]

All same Tree. Final Step "JJ" anchor tree. Very faded, probably the oldest carvings in area. Had a Very Deep "8", B, or smooshed 13 on the tree, very deep. Under the "JJ" anchor.

 

[TurtleisGold]

All Same fat huge beech tree. Probably 5 ft diameter, huge old tree. This one fell hard in the Tornado, so old.

 

[TurtleisGold]

This is the one all the people go nuts over. 7 Rays of Sunlight coming off a laying Turtle. Right under the Turtle are the words "Sun Light", or Sun Night. Written or carved in contradictory Positive Negative spaces. All this is in the immediate vicinity of a Large Hoyo (hole window in rock wall), that stares directly at a Rock face, when seen in the right Sunlight, time of day and year etc.

 

[TurtleisGold]

I could go on and on posting this stuff. Years and years of studying that area and the property lines. I just wanted someone, or anyone, to have access to this info. Go check out Cedar Lake in Illinois yourself. It's a stones throw from Missouri. If anyone wants everything I have, feel free to inquire. I'm done looking, its a morbid curiosity now. I just want to know I'm not crazy for studying this much. Have fun, send a picture if you think you found something cool. Pick up where I left off, I'm out.

 

[mdog]

After a brief search, it seems there was a Knights of the Golden Circle presence, in the area, before the Civil War.
Are you still interested in learning the history of the site? I don't care about the treasure hunting but I love to explore the history of these types of places.

 

[mdog]

Giant City Inscriptions
Giant City State Park near Makanda, Illinois (Figure 1)contains a series of vertical-walled sandstone canyons, or“streets,” formed by the slipping of the sandstone bedrockover many millennia. The largest and most prominentCivil War inscriptions in southern Illinois are locatedalong the Giant City Nature Trail, which passes throughone of the canyons (Figure 9). The inscriptions consistof three sets of very large engraved names located on asheer rock face approximately 2.5 to 5.0 m above the floorof the canyon. The height of the inscriptions above theground surface suggests individuals standing on a ladderplaced against the rock face carved them. The most detailed of the three chiseled inscrip-tions reads “(OF.ILL)/ALBERT S. THOMPSON/ FREMONT BODY GUARD/FEB.22
nd
.1862 AD” (Figure 10). The “(OF. ILL)” part of theinscription is believed to be a reference toO’Fallon, Illinois, near St. Louis, where Albertmay have lived for a while during or shortlyafter his service in the Guard. Located beneathand to the right of this legend is a second inscription that reads “T.W. THOMPSON/ FEB 22
nd
.1862” (Figure 11). The third inscription (“A. PARKER”), which is locatedabove and to the left of the central inscription (Figure 10), is similar in style and size tothe two Thompson names, sug-gesting that the same individualscarved all three names.Further information regard-ing A. Parker could not be found. Albert S. and T. W. Thompson,however, were brothers from Jackson County, one of whom(Albert S.) served in the FremontBody Guard, a volunteer cavalryunit raised at the beginning ofthe Civil War. The FremontBody Guard, also known as theFremont Guard and the Ben-ton Cadets, was an elite unit

 

[mdog]

organized by General John C. Fremont at Cincinnati and St. Louis in August 1861,but which also contained volunteers from Indiana and Illinois (Fremont 1863; Foley1903:484–521; McCorvie 2002). Fremont had been appointed Commander of the Western Department on July 3, 1861, which at that time included Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, and the territory extending west of the Mississippi River to the Rocky Moun-tains (Catton 1956:57–58; Foley 1903:485). In October 1861 Fremont left St. Louis with approximately 20,000 soldiers as part of a plan to attack Confederate forces underGeneral Stirling Price and force them to withdraw from Missouri. In its one and onlyaction on October 25, 1861, the Guard, which was operating in front of Fremont’s mainbody, attacked a Confederate force of approximately 1,000 to 1,500 soldiers. Althoughthey suffered 47 dead in this attack, the 300 soldiers of the Guard inflicted over 100casualties on the Confederates and drove them from the field.One day earlier, on October 24, however, Lincoln had issued an order relievingFremont from command for his refusal to withdraw an ill-timed order that proclaimedmartial law in the Western Department, including the confiscation and freeing of slavesfrom those determined to be traitors to the United States (Catton 1956:63–66; Fremont1863:197–198). Upon learning of the order the members of the Fremont Body Guardapparently expressed mutinous “sentiments,” leading General George McClellan toorder the disbanding of the regiment. Although the Army offered to incorporate theGuard soldiers into a new cavalry regiment, the officers and men unanimously refusedto serve in this unit. Consequently, on November 28, 1861, the commanding officerof the Guard notified Fremont that he had mustered the unit out of service (Fremont1863:213–214).Following the disbandment of the Fremont Body Guard, Albert Thompson returnedto Makanda in Jackson County, Illinois, where his family had moved to from Ohio in1852. His father, Colonel Joshua Thompson, had organized the first meeting of theUnion League in Jackson and Union counties at their home in 1861. This group ofNorthern sympathizers stood in opposition to the clandestine group of southern sym-pathizers known as the Knights of the Golden Circle, or “copperheads,” who were veryactive in southern Illinois during this same time. Clashes between the Knights of theGolden Circle and the Union League eventually resulted in 19 deaths within JacksonCounty alone over the next 2 years (Russell 1989:xix).

 

[mdog]

Severe rheumatism made it impossible for T. W. Thompson to serve in the armysimilar to his younger brother Albert. He was, however, appointed secretary for theUnion League within Jackson County and also served as a deputy Provost Marshal forsouthern Illinois. T. W. was charged with “bringing in [Union] deserters and to act as adetective [against the members of the Knights of the Golden Circle]” within southernIllinois (McCorvie 2002:6). Union Army deserters from southern Illinois were shelteredby their relatives, who hid them from other Union soldiers and provost marshals suchas T. W. Thompson. Some of these deserters are believed to have been from the 109thIllinois Infantry, which had been recruited in Union County and which has the dubiousdistinction of being the only Union regiment to be disbanded for disloyalty during theCivil War. The untrustworthiness of the 109th Illinois stemmed from the opposition ofthe soldiers of this regiment to the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves inthose states in rebellion against the United States. While proclaiming their willingnessto fight to preserve the Union, soldiers of another rebellious southern Illinois regimentalso reportedly stated that they “would lay in the woods until moss grew on their backsrather than help free the slaves” (Catton 1952:227). T. W. Thompson was paid $30 ahead to round up deserters from these and other regiments and convey them to theguardhouse in Cairo, Illinois (Russell 1989:xx). Albert and T. W. Thompson had erected a large Union flag on the top of a cypresstree on their father’s farm that reportedly “could be seen in some directions for fifteenor twenty miles away” following the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln in March, 1861(Russell 1989:xiv–xv). This flag quickly became a lightning rod for both Union andConfederate supporters in Union and Jackson counties, with the Union League holdingtheir first meeting near the flag and the Knights of the Golden Circle attempting tocut it down on at least one occasion. This episode later became the basis for the novel
The Flag on the Hilltop,
which provided a fictionalized account of the conflict betweenUnion and Confederate supporters in southern Illinois (Earle 1902). The Thompson brothers appear to have decided to offer a second direct chal-lenge to the Knights by deeply engraving their names, both of which would have been well-known to southern sympathizers in the region, in large letters on the rock face atGiant City State Park, which was then part of their father’s farm, at a height at whichthey could not easily be defaced. Indeed, the presence of these names at this particularlocation on the landscape suggests that the canyon containing the site may have been arendezvous for the Knights, who would have been dismayed when holding a nighttimemeeting at this location to find out that the Thompson brothers knew where they heldtheir meetings.Similar to the flag erected on the Thompson farm, which survived until the tree to which it was attached was hit by lightning in 1875, the Knights appear to have lackedthe will or ability to deface the rock face at Giant City State Park that contained thenames of the two Thompson brothers. Albert S. Thompson went on to later serve a100-day enlistment in the 146th Illinois Infantry, a regiment whose duties consistedof guarding drafted men and substitutes in central Illinois in late 1864 and early 1865

 

[mdog]

T. W. Thompson went on to become a successful businessman who eventually ownedmost of the land comprising present-day Giant City State Park and Southern IllinoisUniversity at Carbondale (SIUC). The Thompson family name is memorialized in twoopen spaces on the SIUC campus—Thompson Woods and Thompson Lake—that arelocated on land that once formed part of T. W. Thompson’s home in Carbondale priorto his death in 1903 (McCorvie 2002:6–7)

 

[mdog]

Here's the link this article came from. Scroll down to Giant City Inscriptions.

A Pleasure to Look Over: Historic Period Rock Art in Southern Illinois

2010 article on post-1673 rock art engravings and designs associated with early settlement, the American Civil War, and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).

www.academia.edu

 

[mdog]

You might find trees with markings, similar to the ones at Cedar Lake, over at Giant City State Park.

 

[TurtleisGold]

You might find trees with markings, similar to the ones at Cedar Lake, over at Giant City State Park.

I've seen all those carvings in Giant City. I used to live right by Makanda. I've seen the tall names etched in the Rocks, the channels or alleys. There's a perfectly carved Egg Orb in the rocks in the same area. Lots of Drill Holes in the rocks as well. Thanks for the information and taking the time to respond