Signal tree!!!!!

[GroundS.KeepeR]

Today i just witnessed my first Native American Signal tree — sometimes called trail trees... Pics to come ..I have them on my cell phone.. so got to figure out how to load them to computer....

May be a couple days before i load pics ..untill then lets see some pics you may have ..

http://www.smokymountainnews.com/issues/06_05/06_15_05/mtn_voices.html

 

[Tnmountains]

I sure know a lot of people study and swear by them in the South and a lot of theory's are they are caused by nature and deadfalls. I work with a group of foresters and they are skeptical as the tree would have to be several hundred years old to fall into that category and by then they are of great size and few species will live that long. We have trouble finding civil war bullets and shells that have survived in wood and that war was not that long ago. Most we find are in dead cedars and extinct chestnuts. I do know of some of the oak species reach 500 years old but are very large. Also lots of times muscadine will wrap a young tree and bend it down. This is seen on oaks a lot cause they grow so slow in the beginning competing for sunlight.
I have seen the patterns carved and the shapes made. I know in the 1800's people would try all sorts of goofy things with trees in making circles by grafting and so forth.
Remember a renewable(hardwood) forest that is select cut can be cut every 30 years for timber so that gives you an idea of size and rate of growth.This does not apply to loblolly pines and tulip populars though.They can be harvested sooner especially on a north face.
Good topic. Look forward to your pictures.
TnMtns

 

[GroundS.KeepeR]

I sure know a lot of people study and swear by them in the South and a lot of theory's are they are caused by nature and deadfalls. I work with a group of foresters and they are skeptical as the tree would have to be several hundred years old to fall into that category and by then they are of great size and few species will live that long. We have trouble finding civil war bullets and shells that have survived in wood and that war was not that long ago. Most we find are in dead cedars and extinct chestnuts. I do know of some of the oak species reach 500 years old but are very large. Also lots of times muscadine will wrap a young tree and bend it down. This is seen on oaks a lot cause they grow so slow in the beginning competing for sunlight.
I have seen the patterns carved and the shapes made. I know in the 1800's people would try all sorts of goofy things with trees in making circles by grafting and so forth.
Remember a renewable(hardwood) forest that is select cut can be cut every 30 years for timber so that gives you an idea of size and rate of growth.This does not apply to loblolly pines and tulip populars though.They can be harvested sooner especially on a north face.
Good topic. Look forward to your pictures.
TnMtns

Thanks for the info.Its always great to hear from you ..How you been?

How i got to see this is ,I was taking a drive in and around my hunting ground ..I happin to see a gentleman clearing off some land ..So i pulled over and ask him if i could look around his land..He said sure my son found quite a few artifacts here...no rain, dry didnt find much but a few flint pieces..Then after im threw i shake his hand and tell him thanks for letting me look around...Then we get to talking ...Then he tells me about this popular tree on top of the hill that the indians made...he said follow the fence line to the top and its before the woods ...As im driving threw the hay field up up Up ..there she is !!!! I Froze in my spot !!! I knew this had to be real !! At first glance it looked like tree laying over .. then i got closer the base looked like it wasent even in the ground ...I just could not get myself to leave the area .. like something was holding me from leaving...the more i look at some of these pics the more i think somthing was there just the way the sun glared down in some of the pics! Ok i better shut up or you guys will think im craking up

 

[flintdigger]

I have heard my grandfather who was born in the mid 1880's talk about signal tree's there are several very large old oak and pecan tree's around here with odd shapes my grandfather always called them signal tree's, but he said they were used by early white settlers to mark early travel trails. There is one large old odd shaped oak tree on a creek bank where my grandfather said the water was always shallow where people would cross the creek, and several other's that mark area's where he said there used to be old wagon trail's, but even though these tree's are large and very old I do not think they are old enough to have been used by local Indian's that were here much earlier, I don't think they would have been around here at the time most of these odd tree's would prob not been over 40 maybe 50 yrs. old old when my grandfather would have been a boy in the 1880's and 1890's. This is a interesting thread I hope we can get some more input on the subject

 

[Tnmountains]

GroundKeeper
Doing well. Spending a lot of my spare time in the mountains. I am uncertain on those tree's but I have been wrong many times before. I have seen tree's that have large mountain stones in them but have seen what dead falls and vines can do. I will tell you this. My Brother in law has a small collections of artifacts from his land. He never hunted them they just found him when he was in certain area's playing and working on the land he grew up on and still lives on. Anyways he has a very nice stone axe that he found in a rotted out stump in his creek. The area is like a swamp and the stump is under water most times. He said he found it when they dropped the river and it lowered the swamp/creek.
He has no reason to make it up about how that axe got in that old stump and I have no idea. Point being was the artifact was in wood. The trail of tears originated and started here in 1838,172 years ago so a lot of tree's from then and before should still be around. Anything is possible. His axe was from the place listed in this link about the trail of tears. Browns Ferry. I am open to being wrong : )
I would think smooth bark elms would last and be easy to work and bend when young.

http://www.tpl.org/tier3_cd.cfm?content_item_id=10708&folder_id=2225

HH
TnMtns

 

[lumix]

Here's an Indian trail tree that's estimated to be 800 years old.
http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=20366

Another term to search is "thong trees"