A Brief History of Colonization and the Loss of Northeastern Old-Growth Forests
The first Europeans to arrive to eastern North America were greeted with what some have recently called the “Great American Forest.” This mainly uninterrupted wall stretching from the Atlantic to the Great Plains was composed of trees of every shape and dimension, from tiny saplings and mid-sized individuals that we’re accustomed to seeing in our forests today, to truly titanic and venerable specimens, some of which seemed to be as ancient as the very earth itself. The lushness, fecundity, and diversity of the scene overwhelmed the senses to those coming from the exhausted and overly tilled countryside of the Old World. While looked upon as a verdant Eden by some, to many of the early settlers, this untamed land, beset with wild animals and aboriginal inhabitants, and where even at noon, a perpetual twilight held sway underneath the dense and lofty canopy, was a fearsome wilderness that needed to be brought to heel and cultivated to satisfy Christian ideals.
Adriaen van der Donck, an early resident of New York, was enraptured by every feature of his new home, from the native plants and wildlife, to the geology and even culture of its aboriginal inhabitants, documenting his experiences in his 1655 treatise, A Description of New Netherland. Despite his obvious love of the land, he quickly dismissed those who thought it prudent to make more liberal use of the forests, as he believed they contained “such an abundance of wood that it will never be wanting.” He further mentions that it was a common exercise of settlers to construct huge bonfires of wood, just because the material was in their way. The cornucopia appeared to be endless and inexhaustible. And so, the slaughter began.
While later generations would prove to be less wasteful of natural resources as quantities did inevitably begin to dwindle, this didn’t stop the razing of forests. Trees were cut for the production of boards and paper, with larger individuals, especially the exceedingly tall and lanky white pines, being used for ship masts; hemlocks were stripped of their tannin-rich bark for the leather industry; and a variety of trees were axed simply for use as firewood, hickory being especially prized.
Even the most ancient of trees weren’t spared. Early reports document eastern forests being filled with grand and stately trees of dimensions most Americans have never seen and can scarcely visualize. The botanist William Bartram in the late 1700’s described encountering a grove of black oaks in Georgia, some of which “measured eight, nine, ten, and eleven feet diameter five feet above the ground.” In the same area he encountered tulip trees and beeches that “were equally stately.” White Pines in Maine and elsewhere attained heights of 200 feet or more. A grove in Pennsylvania supposedly had some that hit the 230-foot mark. And the mast producing chestnut trees prized by everyone for its tasty nuts occasionally reached diameters of a dozen feet in moist and rich soils of sheltered mountain hollows. Forests took on a cathedral-like atmosphere.
Additionally, the scents that emanated from the forests and meadows possessed a potency that surprised newly arrived explorers. Robert Juet, a member of Henry Hudson’s 1609 expedition that first sailed up the river that would later be named in his captain’s honor, noted in his journal after speaking to those who had taken a small boat to explore the area near Manhattan: “The Lands they told us were as pleasant with Grasse and Flowers, and goodly Trees, as ever they had seene, and very sweet smells came from them.” Over a century later the taxonomist Peter Kalm would report a “most odoriferous effluvia” wafting in from a flower filled river bank in upstate New York.
Over the years, logging and the clearing of land for crops and pasture gradually reduced forest cover by as much as 80% in the Northeast. By the 1850’s the damage was mostly complete. The elimination of forest and the ravenous killing of majestic apex predators, such as wolves, bears, and mountain lions, which were largely, if not wholly, extirpated from the sunny and open confines of Henry David Thoreau’s hometown of Concord, Massachusetts, made him lament the destruction wrought by his ancestors and contemporaries. He felt as though he was cheated and robbed. To him, such action was akin to desecrating a poem, in which his “ancestors have torn out many of the first leaves and grandest passages, and mutilated it in many places.” As a result, his “wish to know an entire heaven and an entire earth” was unable to be met.
Today around only one-half of one percent of original, untouched forest remains in the Northeast. These fragmented patches of old-growth forest are often located in inaccessible locations where it wasn’t possible or worth the trouble to clear the land. New York holds the largest quantities of old-growth, the majority of it located in the Adirondack Preserve, followed behind by Maine, and then Pennsylvania.
Within the Adirondacks, the bulk of old-growth tracts reside in Hamilton County. Superb examples can be hiked through in the Ferris Lake Wild Forest. Most of the trails along the Powley-Piseco Road in Stratford pass through ancient forests composed of red spruce, sugar maple, and yellow birch.
Old-growth along the Big Alderbed Trail in the Ferris Lake Wild Forest.
Remnants also exist downstate—an old-growth hemlock stand resides at the Dover Stone Church Preserve in Dutchess County.
The author stands beside an ancient eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) in Dover Plains.
Old-growth forests contain abundant supplies of much-needed coarse woody debris, such as this “nurse log.” Dover Stone Church Preserve.
And not far away, in Ulster County, centuries old dwarf pitch pine barrens repose atop the rare plant haven that is known as the Shawangunk Ridge.
A regenerating pitch pine (Pinus rigida) forest at the Sam’s Point Preserve seen three months after a wildfire.