Chapter XV – Summary

Less than a human lifetime was all the time it took; starting in the early 1870s and completed by the early 1930s. In that period the pre-European settlement timber in the Upper Greenbrier Valley had been cut, almost down to every single tree. By the late 1800s and early 1900s the technology available to the lumber industry had made it very efficient in the removal of timber on a large scale. What was true in the Greenbrier Valley was also true in most of eastern West Virginia and much of the rest of the state during the same period. The state’s magnificent forests had been turned into boards, flooring, lath, pulpwood, tan bark, barrel staves, ship pins, shingles, utility poles, and forest floor litter well before nascent efforts to protect some of the nation’s pre-European settlement forests and introduce sustainable forestry practices had a foothold in this state.
The attitude of many towards the forest was that the timber supply was endless. In his 1911 book, Forestry and Wood Industries, published by the West Virginia Geological Survey, Alonzo B. Brooks summarized this feeling:
The need of preserving the forests of this country was not apparent to many persons 200 years ago. The pioneer settlers of our Eastern states built their homes in what they considered an almost boundless wilderness. Trees were regarded by them, naturally, as obstacles in the way of improvement, for they were removed with great labor and could not be sold or given away. The openings first made were insignificant in comparison with the vast woodlands which surrounded them. But this was not long the case. As the population increased and settlements were extended from year to year, the small cornfields were widened into extensive farms; fires began to take their toll from the forests in the region of settlements; and the occupation of lumbering began. In the course of time the various agents of destruction, working together, produced a serious condition in the forests. The condition was not readily observed because the people had not been trained to expect trouble from such a source. The conception that the forest was boundless and inexhaustible had been transmitted from one generation to another until it had become fixed in the minds of the inhabitants as a firm belief. With this inherited handicap, therefore, the present generations were slow in believing even what reason taught them was true.1
Brooks noted that West Virginia originally was almost unbroken forest covering more than 15.5 million acres and containing 150 billion feet of timber. At the time he was writing 60% of the state was still timbered. However, in 1910 there were 83 large band and about 900 portable sawmills operating with the capacity to cut all the timber in the state in the next 16 years. He predicted that by 1940 none of the band mills would be in operation due to the depletion of the timber.2
The lumber companies working in the Greenbrier Valley certainly seem to have operated under this belief of unlimited timber supply. Most came to West Virginia following the depletion of timber in other states and probably assumed they could move on to other areas after this state was cut over.
Arthur H. Winchester, who was an investor in West Virginia timber lands in the late 1800s (including the Cheat Mountain land that he purchased for Dewing and Sons that was later purchased by the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company), is reported to have stated in a hearing before the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representative in 1897 “We [West Virginia] don’t need scientific forestry down our way. The growth of our timber is so rapid that the forests restore themselves without artificial help as fast as they can be cut away.” What Winchester was claiming the state’s timber industry did need was the imposition of tariffs to protect it from cheaper lumber being imported from Canada.3
At least partially due to this attitude, during the period when the pre-settlement timber was being stripped from the mountainsides and valley land in the Upper Greenbrier Valley very little was done in the way of reforestation. The brief employment by the George Craig and Sons Lumber Company of a trained forester was related in the article on that company (see Winterburn, Chapter X). There are a few references to the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company making an effort to replant the area the company logged. One was in a news article at the time of absorption of the West Virginia Spruce Lumber Company into the parent company in 1909. The article included:
Another interesting feature of their operations has been the adoption of scientific forestry methods in their lumbering, which, according to their experience to date, assures them practically an inexhaustible supply of timber on their present holdings
Only the right timber has been logged, they are constantly replanting, and today they have 25,000 acres which has been logged over which is coming, both from seedling and young timber growth, to a condition which will permit of most profitable logging thereon again before they have anywhere near logged their entire premises.4
An article on the lumber operation at Cass in the American Lumberman in 1911 made a brief reference to replanting by W. Va. Pulp and Paper. Following comments on the company’s efforts to control fire, the article continues: “Only about 1500 of its 25,000 acres of the company’s cut over lands have been burned over and these are being carefully replanted, as are other areas where the young timber left is not sufficient to provide a heavy future growth. In replanting, the men pick up the small spruce which are to be found in abundance among the older timber and these are put into ground within twenty-four hours.”5
WVP&P wrote to Brooks in 1910 and reported the company had planted 25,000 spruce trees in 1909, with about 80% growing a year later, and 170,000 spruce and 2000 yellow poplars in 1910. In the letter the company expressed it great interest “in the reproduction of forests on our property and it is our present intention to do everything in our power in the future to save and propagate the timber.” The letter stated that timber under about ten inches was being left. “We confidently believe that if the fire can be kept out of the old slashing that our property will reproduce itself rapidly and that by the time we have lumbered over it, it will be possible to go over it again, and while of course we will not be able to secure the quantity of large lumber, we can make the crops perpetual for pulp.”6
However, other than these limited efforts – and WVP&P seems to have discontinued its reforestation program after a few years – the companies cutting the Greenbrier Valley timber did it with no particular thought to the future.
But, as always in judging the actions of those who came before us, we must be careful not to use the standards and knowledge of our time. Particularly, since in many parts of the world, including parts of environmentally “enlightened” North America, the forests are continued to be attacked as if they go on forever. Our ancestors could only see unending forests as they climbed to the top of each mountain – today we can see the entire earth virtually at once from space. Yet, we are generally behaving as a lumber company of 1900 without the excuse of limited vision. Our approach today to other natural resources, particularly oil and natural gas, is not much different. As the 21st Century gets underway we still seem to operate mainly on the belief that these resources are infinite.
The generation that is using “mountain top removal” for the production of coal is not exactly in a position to criticize those who clear cut the timber of our West Virginia mountains. The trees have regrown; the mountains will not. True, acres of ugliness did follow the timbering. Clear cut sites are not pretty and fires followed the logging in many areas, burning the left behind debris and in places burning off the eons-old accumulation of humus down to bare rock. But trees have regrown and even the areas of the worse fires are slowly healing. The ugliness and waste of mountain top removal will remain with us and the generations to come, forever.
Attitude was not the only reason for the “clear cut” timbering that was done; economics played a major role. Even lumbermen who may have had the foresight to realize that the amount of timber was finite were confined by the economics of the business. The average company held a relatively small amount of timber and reaching it required for most the major cost of building a railroad. There was no way a company could regain its expenses and pay its debts if it built a railroad some distance into a section of its holdings, take only part of the timber, and then remove the track, planning to relay it back a number of years later to take some additional timber. The only way to make money on the investment of money for timber, equipment, and railroad construction was to take it all. Only a few companies owned large enough amounts of timber land to be able to look forward to a return to the cut-over portion of their holdings.
In his 1908 article on forest land management in West Virginia, Max Rothkugel recommended the use of portable mills, 15,000 to 20,000 feet per day capacity, rather than large capacity mills, of up to 100,000 capacity. “Big mills with their large investment in equipment and in rails must disappear before management of the present stands can be practiced. With a comparatively small investment tied up in mills and railroads the forest can be constantly maintained in a productive condition and still a good interest percent on the original investment would be assured.”7
In the Upper Greenbrier Valley, the only companies with large enough land holdings to consider being able to recut their own land were St. Lawrence Boom and Manufacturing/Sherwood Companies, Greenbrier River Lumber Company, and West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company. There is no evidence that SLB&M/Sherwood ever made any effort in reforestation. GRLCo was mainly a land holding company for John McGraw and, other than the small amount cut in the early 1900s, sold its property to other lumber companies.
As noted before there are a few references to reforestation by WVP&P in early years. One of these is in the 1911 book, Forestry and Wood Industries. Under the Randolph County section, there is statement: “It is gratifying to note that at least one lumber company – the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company – is making extensive plantations of spruce trees on its cut-over lands near the head of Shavers Fork of Cheat river.” However, no evidence exists that the effort continued on a long-term basis. Mower Lumber did cut second growth timber on its former WVP&P land, but this was due to the efforts of Mother Nature and not planned reforestation.8
As early as the mid-1890s the logging had been going on for a sufficient length of time that the change it created in the landscape was becoming obvious. In early 1897 the Times made the following observation:
The disappearance of the logs and timbermen have made a great change in the appearance of things between Marlinton and Driscol. Our old acquaintances, the logs, will hardly be recognizable when they return in a year or two as furniture, goods-boxes and picture frames. It makes a great difference with logs, as well as boys, to go abroad, remain awhile and then come back to serve some useful or ornamental purpose.9
However, there were voices during the boom period expressing regret about the destruction of the area’s forests and concern about the future timber supply.
In 1898, even before the major logging had begun in the Greenbrier Valley, the West Virginia Board of Agriculture declared “Owing to the rapid destruction of our forests it is high time that something be done looking toward the preservation and protection of our timber land.”10
In a 1903 article on the operations of WVP&P on Cheat Mountain, Marlinton resident Norman Price commented, “It is a pity that the government did not set aside the forests about the headwaters of our rivers as a forest reserve.” However, he followed that sentence with “However the sacrifice of the trees has brought capital to be invested in the county, and therewith we must rest content.”11
On December 5, 1906, a traveling salesman of Sure Shot tobacco by the name of Ignatius Brennen sat on the end of a crosstie at Stony Bottom and wrote the following poem, presumably to his wife or girlfriend.
“In the Greenbrier Mountains”
With a pad on my knee, dear,
I’m penning to thee dear,
A line of myself emblamatic,
Through not sentimental,
Nor yet Continental,
But very much straight Democratic.
In the Greenbrier Mountains,
Where natural fountains,
Have slacked the wild deer of its thirsting,
I’m plying my trading,
And green haunts invading,
And quaffing from water to bursting.
When God made this Creation,
His intention, I’d reckon,
Was a home for the wild beasts and savage,
But the white man came onward,
Moonward and sunward,
Its fine virgin forests to ravage.
The forests depleted,
The rape is completed,
What nature held sacred has vanished,
The fawn and its mother,
And lo-the poor Indian, are banished.
The fir and the pine tree,
The hemlock and vine-tree,
Exchanges of sorrow are granting,
The fire-ravished hill-side,
The snake haunted rill-side,
Inanimate requiems are chanting.
The Greenbrier River,
Rolls on with a quiver,
Polluted with chemical lotion,
It hastes to connection,
In southwest direction,
Contented when lost in the ocean.
I turn back the pages,
And stop with the ages,
When nature was absolute master,
Then picture the white man,
(Lets hope he’s a right man),
Who wrough all this awful disaster.12
The author would love to know what brought about this outburst from Mr. Brennen (an early environmentalist?). Perhaps "chemical lotion" referred to some discharge from the tannery at Frank? It would seem something more likely to be written about twenty years later; in 1906 the stripping of the mountainsides of timber had only begun. In an article written after logging was underway on the North Fork of the Cherry River, W. C. Dodrill described the impact on that watershed and compared it with the adjoining Cranberry River. An object lesson in the changed conditions brought about by cutting away the timber may be seen along the divide between Cherry and Cranberry. On the Cherry side all the timber in some place has been cut down except the birch that is not of the best quality and a few, very few, other species that are worthless for lumber. Worthless and broken logs strew the ground. Tramway roads leading to the tops of the hills are found at short intervals. Each rain cuts these deeper and washes away the humus that is so essential to plant life. Nothing remains to remind one of the greatness of this beautiful old forest but the decaying stumps. By counting the ring growths of some of the black spruce stumps it was found that the tree had been nourished by the rains of more than 500 summers and had defied the storms of as many winters. In this region destruction and desolation is depicted everywhere. But what are the conditions existing on the other side of the divided where the woodman's axe has been withheld! The forest admirer may wander for days among the grand old trees that have stood for centuries. The ground is covered with a soft carpet of moss and decaying leaves. The water that falls in the form of rain or snow gradually sinks into the ground. What is not utilized by the trees seeks a lower level by a slow process. Dodrill made note of the difference in water runoff between the two areas, with the Cherry nearly always muddy and the Cranberry nearly always clear; greater floods in the former and fewer in the later; also, more water in the Cranberry than the Cherry than the time of drought. In noting that "Water supply is as much a question in the conservation of the forests as the timber supply. One in a measure depends upon the other." Dodrill was giving one of the arguments that lead to the creation of eastern national forests. He also noted the lesser number of birds found on the Cherry since lumber operations began. Within two years. timbering is to begin on the Cranberry, Dodrill wrote, "When this occurs one of the most beautiful and picturesque mountain streams in the Appalachian region will be robbed of its greatest glory . . . "13 A 1912 article in the Times with the title "Timber," it was noted that timber production was already more that thought possible and there was still a lot to be cut: The lumberman have already taken from this county threes times as much timber as the highest guess ever made at it prior to the building of the railroad. Three hundred million a year for the past ten years is a low estimate and three billion feet of lumber has been shipped from the mills and great areas of timber are not touched yet. About one third of the timber has been cut is one guess at the present situation, though that runs the amount of timber to fabulous figures. Just when the timber of this county will give out is a hazy and uncertain period, and the subject is not a welcome one.14 At the time the timbering that would strip the Upper Greenbrier Valley of its trees was getting underway, there were the beginnings of national concern about the massive cutting of the nation's forests. It was probably the removal of forests to provide land for agriculture that began the first concerns about whether the wanton destruction of forest land was a good thing. It was "agriculturalists who saw and appreciated what clearing could do to the land itself, to the soil, the stream flow, the microclimate, and the fish and animal life." As early as 1818 former President James Madison noted that all of the errors in the rural economy of the United States "none is so much to be regretted, perhaps because none is so difficult to repair, as the injurious and excessive destruction of timber and firewood."15 Madison was early in his concern about forest removal, but by the latter part of the Nineteenth Century there were a number of people expressing concern over the destruction of the forests, both for farms and lumber. One of the first given credit for bringing attention to the rapid deforestation and it impacts was George Perkins Marsh with his book Man and Nature, published in 1864. This is a remarkable book, considered by some to be the beginning of the modern environmental movement. One of the most influencial books of its time, second perhaps only to one published five year's earlier, Darwin's Origin of Species. The brief amount of space the author can give to Man and Nature in this writing cannot begin to ----- If one did not know the date it was published, the insight Marsh shows into environmental problems caused by our misuse of our resources reads like the date was 1964 rather than 100 years earlier. Marsh was born in 1901 in the Green Mountains of Vermont, at Woodstock, at the time when the mountains were truly green. He Spending five years in Turkey as -- and then the last 21 years of his life as ambassador to Italy gave Marsh a close look how George Marsh delivered an address before the Agricultural Society of Rutland County, Vermont, on - - - -- - in 1847. Marsh had worn many hats over his lifetime: lawyer, journalist, sheep farmer, mill owner, linguistics scholar, and diplomat. He designed the Washington Monument and co-founded the Smithsonian Institution. But it was in his role as United States senator that he addressed the Agricultural Society. He was the first person to publicly raise the issue of manmade climate change, and his speech helped spark the conservation movement. In his speech, Marsh said: "Man cannot at his pleasure command the rain and the sunshine, the wind and frost and snow, yet it is certain that climate itself has in many instances been gradually changed and ameliorated or deteriorated by human action. The draining of swamps and the clearing of forests perceptibly effect the evaporation from the earth [...] The same causes modify the electrical condition of the atmosphere and the power of the surface to reflect, absorb and radiate the rays of the sun, and consequently influence the distribution of light and heat, and the force and direction of the winds. Within narrow limits too, domestic fires and artificial structures create and diffuse increased warmth, to an extent that may effect vegetation." He was talking about concepts familiar to us now as the urban heat island effect and the greenhouse effect. As a result of his speech, Marsh went on to publish a book titled Man and Nature: or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action (1864). "[M]an is everywhere a disturbing agent," Marsh wrote. "Wherever he plants his foot, the harmonies of nature are turned to discords. The proportions and accommodations which insured the stability of existing arrangements are overthrown. Indigenous vegetable and animal species are extirpated, and supplanted by others of foreign origin, spontaneous production is forbidden or restricted, and the face of the earth is either laid bare or covered with a new and reluctant growth of vegetable forms, and with alien tribes of animal life. Marsh's book was used by those with a growing realization of the for government owned forest reserves to support their case. These efforts resulted in the first national forests being established in the 1890s. These actions followed the passage of the Forest Reserve Act in 1891 authorizing the president to set aside forest reserves from the public domain. At first these lands were managed by the Department of the Interior. Also in 1891, a Division of Forestry was created within the Department of Agriculture. In 1905 the Forestry Bureau was renamed the Forest Service and the forest reserves came under its jurisdiction. Clifford Pinchot was the first head of the USFS. Moving to the state level, in the early 1900s some actions were beginning for the protection of the state’s forest lands. In 1906, a pamphlet entitled The Needs of Forest Protection in West Virginia and Suggestions for a Forest Law was published by Hu Maxwell. He noted the value of the state’s forests for timber and influence on erosion and water flow, their destruction by fire and careless lumbering, and lack of action to prevent waste. However, the law proposed in the pamphlet was considered in the 1907 Legislature but failed to pass.16 Governor William Dawson appointed a three-member Conservation Commission in 1908, with Maxwell as one of the members. The Commission’s report, published in the fall of that year, devoted a major part to a discussion of the forest resources of the state and made recommendations for policies to protect these resources.17 also in 1908? West Virginia University established a Chair of Forestry as a department in its College of Agriculture and selected A. W. Nolan as the school’s first professor of forestry - Brooks, p 361-2 The West Virginia Forestry Association was organized at a meeting in January 1908 at WVU by representatives from 23 counties of the state Brooks p 362 PT, 3/12/1908 - meeting was on Jan. 24, reference in the article to the new department of forestry at WVU, Prof. A. W. Nolan, professor in charge of the new department, elected secretary of the WVFA - objects of the new group included: conservation of forest resources of the state; bring about better state laws for conserving and utilizing forests; take steps to reforesting denuded lands and exempting of woodlands from taxation; encourage tree planting; educate youth to appreciate the economic as well as esthetic value of trees In Forestry Quarterly, Vol. VI, p 329, from Southern Lumberman, 2/15/1908, W. Va. has
added a forestry school the state university
a state forestry association has been formed
State Board of Trade has appointed a committee to draft forest laws and police for the Legislature at its next session
In the early 1900s, just as the timbering boom in the Greenbrier Valley was getting up a full head of steam, The Pocahontas Times printed two articles which warned of the rate at which the nation was cutting its timber resource.
The first was in 1907 with the reprint of an article by an U. S. Department of Agriculture forester, Overton W. Price. Price began his article by noting that the lumber industry in the United States ranked fourth among the manufacturing industries of the country, producing products with an annual value of $566,090,000 and providing employment for considerably more than a million people. He noted rapid improvements in tools and machinery that had taken place in the industry in the previous fifty years. “In effective methods for the harvesting and manufacturing of lumber, the American lumberman has no superior, . . .”
However, Price quickly got to the main point of his article which was that the rapid development of the industry “has been fundamentally unsound in principle” and was heading for failure due to the rate at which it was depleting the resource upon which it depended. “The havoc which has been wrought in the forest of the United States has turned trees into money, but the balance on the wrong side of the sheet by rendering vast areas unproductive.” The sentence quoted in the last paragraph concluded “nor is he equaled in his disregard for the future of the forest which he cuts.” Price noted that although with the data then available “there is no way to foretell accurately the time necessary to exhaust this supply of merchantable timber,” he supports his argument about the dangers to the future of the lumber industry by noting that already were the supplies of timber of some species were failing and some almost exhausted. He gave as examples black walnut, white pine (“growing rapidly to be a rarity on the market”) and spruce for pulpwood. The list of species once considered valueless were being harvested more and being accepted as merchantable due to the exhaustion of more valuable kinds, Price wrote.
“It is natural that the lumberman should not turn eagerly from a system whose only aim is to secure the highest possible present profit from the forest to one which includes provisions for the production of a second crop from the lumbered area,” Price stated. However, he wrote that the time for “practical forestry has fully arrived.”18
The second article in the paper was excerpts from a 1909 report issued by the U. S. Forest Service, “The Timber Supply of the United States,” that claimed that the nation was cutting its forests faster than the annual growth. The report stated the nation was cutting its forests three times as fast as new timber was growing. “There is menace in the continuance of such conditions. While we might never reach absolute timber exhaustion, the unrestricted exploitation of our forests in the past has already had serious effects and it will have worse if it is allowed to continue unchecked.” White pine was used as one of the examples in the report. “White pine, for instance, which was once considered inexhausible, has fallen off seventy per cent in cut since 1890, and more than forty-five per cent since 1900.”
The report noted “The fact that timber has been cheap and abundant has made us careless of its production and reckless in its use.” It went on to give the example of Germany which was managing its forests so that wood growth exceeded timber production. “But to reach the necessary condition of equilibrium between timber production and consumption will take many years of vigorous effort by individual forest owners, by the States, and by the National Government. None of them can solve the problem alone; all must work together.”19
The office of Forest, Game, and Fish Warden was created by the Legislature in 1909, to replace the existing Fish and Game Warden position. J. A. Viquesney was appointed to the new position. The 1909 law also called for forest protection and research and provided for punishment of individuals and company owners who intentionally or carelessly set forest fires.20
In his 1911 book, Brooks surveyed what other states were doing to protect their forests and made a number of recommendations. The first was for the appointment of a state forester with duties in the areas of education, advice to private land owners, forest fire control, collection of data on forest and forest industries, and determining whether state-owned lands should be retained for forestry purposes. To encourage tree planting he recommended a law that would exempt from taxes for a period of years land that is planted to carefully prepared specifications or provide for a scale of rebates on such lands. Also recommended was for the state to agree to the acquisition of land by the federal government for a national forest.21
In an article in American Forestry magazine in 1913, Merritt Wilson, a West Virginia lumberman, wrote that unless the effort is made “to protect the growing timber and reforest the cutover lands of West Virginia that the lumber industry, one of the leading industries of our state, will soon be almost a thing of the past. The uncut area is getting smaller every year and it would seem that the only way to have a supply for the future is to grow it.” He noted that this state is “perhaps as well adapted to growing timber as any State east of the Mississippi river, unless it is Maine, and while it is well adapted to growing timber, much of the area is of little value for anything else, owing to the rough and mountainous character of the country.” Later in his article, Wilson gave his estimate of 12,000 square miles of the state “better adapted for growing timber than anything else.”
Wilson recommended the creation of a state Forestry Commission with the power to buy cut-over lands. Like Brooks, he also recommended using the tax laws to encourage the setting aside of land for reforestation.
He stressed that fire was the greatest threat to growing new forests. He noted that the cause of most forest fires were sparks from railroad and logging company locomotives and fires set by farmers to make more range for livestock, as well fires set by those who just want to see the woods burn. Lack of care by the railroad companies came under particular criticism from Wilson. “It is our opinion that companies and individuals carelessly letting fires get started should be made to pay damages for any timber and other property destroyed.”22
At the national level forested lands were being protected in the growing national forest system. However, all the first national forests had to be located in the west, as that is where the federal government owned land. The government had no authority to purchase private land for preserves. Following the establishment of the national forests in the west, efforts began to have legislation passed to allow the establishment of federal forest reserves in the Appalachians. Those in favor stressed the importance of forests in preventing flooding and siltation and regulation of stream flow. Following bad flooding in 1907 with millions of dollars of damages along the Monongahela and Ohio Rivers, the role of the cutover mountains in the headwaters in making the situation worse became obvious. Finally in 1911 Congress passed the Weeks Act which authorized the federal purchase of forests to protect the headwaters of navigable streams.
The first purchase within West Virginia for national forest purpose was in Tucker County in 1915. In 1920 the Monongahela purchase area was proclaimed as the Monongahela National Forest. The first property purchased for the MNF in the Greenbrier Valley was from the George Craig and Sons Lumber Company in April 1923. The tract contained 9,674 acres on — 23
The State of West Virginia was also taking additional action to protect the state’s forest lands. In 1921 the West Virginia Game and Fish Commission was created for the purpose of — need copy of law
The first tracts purchased by the Commission were in the Greenbrier Valley. In January 1924 A. D. Neill sold 10,847 acres to the Commission and a year later 4,546 acres were purchased from the Watoga Land Association. Today the former tract makes up most of Seneca State Forest and the other about half of Watoga State Park.24
As related in the articles on the individual lumber companies, most of their lands went into government ownership after being cut. In 2011 the Monongahela National Forest owns —- acres in Greenbrier and Pocahontas Counties and state parks and forests make up another —- acres of mostly former lumber company land.
The Fish and Game Commission also had responsibilities for a forest fire protection system.
Perhaps find somewhere in the fire discussion to fit in quotes from:
PT, 10/31/1901 – “This section has been scourged with fires several times within the past two years where forest fires were never known before, the woods being too dense and damp to burn, but with the opening up of farms and the cutting of the timber the woods are becoming dry.” from article on a fire on Laurel Creek (of Williams River)
PT, 11/5/1931 – Forest fires burned 64,110 acres in the county, January 1922 to January 1931 – estimated timber damage, $135,984
PT, 10/15/1914 Lookout stations in Pocahontas County were on Marlin Mountain at Mt. View Orchard, Briery Knob, and Bald Knob. “The country covered by the Marlin Mountain lookout is the Greenbrier Valley from the Alleghany top to the top of the high dividing ridge between the Greenbrier, and Cheat, Elk, Williams and Cranberry, as far north as Cass and as far south as Spice Run.”
Shawkey, p 286, F&G C installed 34 steel fire towers “within past five years” – “put nearly one-half of the timber area of the State, which is seriously subject to forest fires, under the observation of the rangers who are on duty constantly during the dry weather periods of the year.”
Despite all the human tragedy associated with the Great Depression of the 1930s, it reduced the demand for timber and thus reduced the amount of cutting, giving forests the opportunity to recover from the over cutting of the previous half-century. Marginal farm land was abandoned as the nation slid into depression and allowed to return to timberland.
The Depression also produced also one of the most important conservation efforts in the nation’s history, the Civilian Conservation Corps. Within the geographic area covered by this writing a total of fourteen CCC camps were established. Some had a brief existence while others were open for almost the entire period of the CCC program. All did work in the areas of reforestation, forest fire control, development of parks —- that are still obvious today.25
In 1933 the W. Va. Legislature replaced the Forest, Game and Fish Commission with the Conservation Commission (now the Department of Natural Resources) — allow state to work with the CCC – This law also established the position of state forester — need law
At West Virginia University, the Chair of Forestry became the School of Forestry in 1935 — check details
The good work of natural forces, with the human assistance related above, have restored the forests to the mountains and bottom lands of the Greenbrier Valley and at first glance they would look very familiar to any early settler who might by some way be able to return to the valley. Obviously, the vast acres of cleared farmland would be different than the few small clearings found by the original settlers, but the forested mountains would seem the same. As was the case 300 years ago, there is a progression of tree species as altitude changes, with the spruce on the highest ridges.
However, differences would be quickly noticed by our reincarnated pioneer. Today’s forest of second and third growth trees would look much different than the mostly mature forest found by the early settlers. The proportion of the various species would be considerably different now, with some species found by the original settlers non-existent or greatly reduced in extent.
Some of the differences in today’s forest from the forest that existed 300 years ago are the natural changes that occur when forests regrow from a disturbance. At one time it was believed that the climax forest in a given area was permanent; following a destruction of a section of forest, the eventual mature forest would be the same as was there before. This has found not to be the case since it takes up to hundreds of years for a forest to become mature and conditions of climate and other factors affecting forests are not the same over time. Other changes from the forest the first Europeans found are more directly the result of human activity.
One difference is the acreages of white pine, red spruce, and hemlock are much reduced from the forest the first settlers found. Whether this is a temporary condition as the forests recover from the clear-cut logging operations and grow their way towards maturity (assuming we would let them do this) or a permanent change in our forests, only time will tell.
As the lumbering operations were just getting underway, nature was making changes in the forests. In the documents in a — court case was the following statement by Daniel O’Connell:
Respondent further states that whether it is generally known or not, it is a fact, that Pine timber in that section within the last two years has been seriously prayed upon by a insect styled amongst lumbermen as “the bug”.
Mr. Brewer, as the respondent is informed and believes, becoming uneasy lest some of his pine timber should be lost to him on account of this insect decided to cut some of the timber of that character standing upon these lands during the present [1893-94] logging season.26
The writer of a news item in January 1895 noted “Everything has combined against lumbering the past few years. Bugs destroyed the timber, the rains ceased, and the price has fallen.”27
“The bug” referred by O’Connell is the southern pine beetle (Dendroctonus frontalis). This insect is one of the most destructive insects of pines in the southern United States
Forestry Quarterly, Vol IX, 1911, No. 3, September 1911 – a news note on the southern pine beetle states “It appears, however, that only at long intervals does it increase to such numbers as to cause widespread depredations, such as, for example, the great invasion of 1890 – 1893 in the Virginias.”
CWP, PT, 12/19/1935, refers to the southern pine beetle taking out the yellow pine east of the GR "more than forty years ago" "I remember being taken to a high mountain to look out over the Greenbrier peniplain (sic) and to see vast stretches of country brown as a sheep skin form the dead pines. This tree was superceded (sic) by the oaks, soft maple, hickory, and where the ground was too thin for better species of trees, chinquepin oak and bull pine." At least the southern pine beetle is a natural part of the North American ecosystem and the native trees have evolved ways to survive attacks by it. Unfortunately, such is not the case with imported dangers to the forests, where the native tree species have no natural protection. One of the first things our returnee would probably notice is something that is not present in today’s forest - the magnificent American chestnut tree. Although to the settler most species were just trees that were in the way of establishing farms, the chestnut was a tree of great usefulness, both for its wood and its nuts that provided food for both man and animal. The absence of this tree is due to a natural cause, but it is humans and not nature that must take the blame. In the early 1900s, as the timbering in the valley was at its most intensive, the chestnut was under attack from a foreigner invader. Chinese chestnut trees imported from Asia for nursery stock brought with them a fungus that the native chestnut trees had no resistance to. In 1904 it was noticed that trees in the New York Zoological Park were dying. The spores of the fungus were carried by wind, bird, insects, and people throughout the tree’s range in the Appalachian Mountains. By 1910 American chestnut trees were dying across Pennsylvania and the blight was moving south at a rate of 50 miles a year. All efforts to stop the blight failed and by the 1950s the tree was virtually gone from Appalachian forests. There is some hope for the future of the American chestnut as a feature of the Appalachian forests. Even today chestnuts will grow from roots of long dead trees. However, before long the youthful chestnut succumb to the blight. But research efforts have been underway for a number of years to cross-breed with the blight resistant Chinese chestnut and eventually produce an American chestnut that is also blight resistant. Chestnut blight is itself merely the most dramatic symptom of epidemic in Appalachian forest, one that came in with the twentieth century but has hardly run its course. The globalization of the world’s economy is being accompanied by a less beneficial globalization of its ecology. International trade has opened the doors to some very undesirable immigrants. Brought in purposely for one reason or another, or unintentionally on lumber, furniture, exotic plants, and sundry other imports, more than a dozen introduced pests and diseases now assail Appalachia.28 Another example of an “on purpose” human decision that has resulted in a curse to our forests was bringing the gypsy moth, a native of Europe, to this country in -1869 -- 1868 -- in hopes of using it for silk production. Some escaped into the wild and trees began to die due to the defoliation caused by the gypsy moth caterpillars. From the initial defoliation in Massachusetts in 1889, the moth has moved its way south and west, reaching West Virginia in ----. Oak trees, valuable to both wildlife and timberman, have been particularly impacted by the gypsy moth. The moths are also partial to beech, pines, and hemlock. One author recently wrote that “if gypsy moths continue their recurrent pattern of eating all the oaks they can find, other species of trees will take over the dominance of the forests. That will mean fewer acorns, which now serve as the main substitute for chestnuts as wildlife food. The number of wild animals that Appalachian forests can support will take another sharp dip.”29 Fortunately, there is some good news with regard to this pest. A fungus from Japan has been found that attacks only the gypsy moth and has reduced the amount of acres defoliated by --- A pioneer returning to the valley a few years from now will probably find another of tree species common in his time, the hemlock, to be missing. Hemlock has made up a smaller percentage of second growth forest and now a tiny, less than 1/16th of an inch, Asian import, the hemlock woolly adelgid, is threatening to eliminate these magnificent trees from the forests of the eastern United States. It was first found found in 1951 in Richmond, Virginia, in a hemlock tree near Maymont Park. The park was originally a private estate and it is believed the insect may have come to this country with the establishment on the estate of a Japanese garden in 1911.30 There was no particular concern about this pest until the late 1980s when was found in a stand of hemlocks outside of the city. About the same time hemlocks were found to be invested with the woolly adelgid in Shenandoah National Park in Northern Virginia. By the mid-1990s most of hemlocks in the park were dead. The pest has been working its way north, west and south and is now found in sixteen states, covering about half the range of the two hemlock species in the east. In West Virginia, the insect has invaded almost half of the state’s counties. After being infected, a hemlock will die in about three years. There is a chemical treatment but it is expensive to apply and and repeated treatments are needed. Another disease caused by an import is white pine blister rust, caused by a fungus that came to --- The spruce budworm, coming from ----, attacks spruce, firs, tamarack, hemlocks, and pines. In recent decades even more horrors have come to the forests. These include: * Dogwood Anthracnose * Balsam Woolly Aphid * Adelges piceae * Dutch Bark Disease * Butternut Canker * Oak Wilt * Sudden Oak Death, Asian longhorn beetle, emerald ash borer
Sullivan, Rose, New Threats to Mountain State Trees Emerge, WV Wildlife Diversity News, WV DNR, Vol. 19 , No. 4, Winter 2003
Invasive plants impacting forests include: * autumn olive * multiflora rose * tree of heaven * barberry * crown vetch * garlic mustard * Asiatic bittersweet The fewer acres of white pine, spruce, and hemlock, mentioned before, would be a direct result of the lumbering operations. The white pine, the dominate species at lower elevations to the east of the river, now exists only in scattered stands. In its place today are ------- The fires that followed the logging were severe enough in some areas to burn away, not only the debris left behind by the loggers, but the soil itself, leaving only bedrock. Recovery of these areas is, of course, taking longer -- Air pollution has placed a strain on the acid rain - soil nutrient depletion Another environmental factor that is determining the future of our forests is climate change caused by global warming. While the argument goes on about about much of this is to be blamed on man’s activities (among politicians, not reputable scientists), the forests of the Greenbrier Valley, as elsewhere, are slowly changing under its impact. Dan Lewerenz, Associated Press, article in Charleston Gazette, 6/13/2003, "Oaks decline, maples move in", on decline of oaks, increase in maples. Reasons given are (1) fire suppression. Maples sensitive to fire and few used to survive ground fires - oaks use fire as part of natural regeneration. (2) decrease in soil quantity and quality. Soils washed away following clear cutting of 100 years ago and soil polluted by acid rain and stripped of important elements - maples more tolerant of acidic soils . (3) deer population increase. Deer would rather eat oak than maple. Another difference in today's forests as compared to what the original settlers found is in the areas where spruce timber is found. Although it hard to distinguish much of the trees today are Norway spruce rather than the native red spruce. This is another change based on decisions made by those concerned with the future of forests. Starting with Rothkugel, Norway spruce has been used for replanting areas where red spruce was the native tree -
need to find out how much Norway spruce seeding was done and how much of today’s spruce is red and how much Norway – need to confirm that Norway does a better job of surviving the conditions found in cut-over and often burned-over forest land as claimed in Carvel, “Arboreal Mysteries Unraveled”
But I should not end on a pessimistic note. Change is part of the natural scheme and will continue as long as this planet exists. How much the activities of humans have sped up and otherwise impacted this change is a matter of debate among scientists and politicians (more among the latter). Hopefully, before too many more years pass the so-called “intelligent” species will move from decision making based mostly on self-interest and short-term goals to more thoughts for the future of our fragile earth and the best-interest of our children and grandchildren. As for our forests, words written in a February 1, 1905, letter from Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson to Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot, are as true today as when written, “In the administration of the forest reserves it must be clearly borne in mind that all land is to be devoted to its most productive use of the permanent good of the whole people, and not for the temporary benefit of individuals or companies . . . “. . . where conflicting interests must be reconciled the question will always be decided from he standpoint of the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run.”31 Although, as related in the previous pages, the timbermen of the late 1800s and early 1900s did a very tho--- job of removing the trees from the Greenbrier Valley, virgin timber does exist in a few areas. The easiest to access is the Gaudineer Knob ----- . Here --- acres of timber were saved from the lumberman's axe and saw by ------ Baun refers to "A virgin forest area some three miles east of Linwood at the southern end of Back Allegheny Mountain (where it joins the southern end of Cheat Mountain) ...." p 82 Baun has photo on p 80 of virgin white oak near Anthonys Creek - Virginians for Wilderness website, http://asecular.com/forests/anthonycr.htm, Old Growth/Anthony Creek, locates what it thinks is on the east-facing slope just west of the North Fork
A. Price, PT, 12/28/1916, “A forest is a long time in growing, but they do grow.”
PT, 4/7/1927 article on the Upper Tract. “The Upper Tract has in it now the large and important town of Durbin, and one of the big tanneries of the country, but for the most part the land is regaining its wilderness estate, and soon it will be an ideal retreat for the lovers of nature, who will find all the delights of the forest and stream. Time will heal the hurts made by the timber operations, and the experts of the National Forest aid materially in its rejuvenation.”

Although this book is not intended to be a social history of this part of West Virginia, the author feels it would be irresponsible not to comment on some of the recent writings and books about the impact on the development of the natural resources of West Virginia has had on the people of the state and its environment. The usual theme of these books and articles is that it was a disaster, leaving behind an exploited and dispirited people, unable to cope with modern life and a ruined landscape. This analysis has been extended to all regions of the state and all resources, including the timbering in the Greenbrier Valley. Some of these writings, quite frankly, contain historical mistakes about the Greenbrier Valley which show a lack of historical research (or an interpretation of research to meet pre-conceived conclusions). Much of what the writers have said about the impact of development and the actions of developers (past and present) is true, but much is also total imagination. For the coal producing regions of West Virginia, much of what is written about the impacts of development on the land and people is, unfortunately true. However, the Greenbrier Valley and other parts of eastern West Virginia --- There is no argument that the timbering that took place from the late 1800s to about 1930 had major environmental impacts. This has been a major theme in this chapter. It is in discussing the impact on the people and society of the valley that recent authors have gone greatly off base. What is forgotten by these writers is that the valley had a long-established, viable economic base and settled population, based on agriculture, prior to the timber development, unlike much of the coal producing regions of the state, where the coal development was the first and virtually only aspect of the economy. The people of the Greenbrier Valley were not the stereotype “hillbillies” of books, movies, and recent social studies of the Appalachian Mountain states, but as educated -- as any -- In Pocahontas County, for example, three, not one, but three, preparatory schools for the University of Virginia were established in the 1840s. As related in Chapter I, by the time of the Civil War, a series of turnpikes connected the valley with the rest of Virginia. Lewisburg was an educational center The land purchased by the lumber companies was of little value to the agricultural based economy of the Greenbrier Valley. (References to the cost of removing timber to convert land to farm use were made in Chapter I.) The companies did not purchase land being used for agriculture (why would they?), except for sites along the railroad needed for the mills and mill towns. Generally most of these sites went back to agricultural use after the mills closed and remain so today. Did the local landowners get as much as they should have for their timber and timber land? Perhaps not, but this is a question that cannot be answered with certainty now. Getting any income from land that was useless for your main economic activity can only be considered a positive. (Considering the number of lumber company bankruptcies, some folks may have gotten too much for their timber.) The major tracts of land acquired for the lumber companies were not stolen from a group of illiterate farmers. Most of the timber acreage had been in the hands of speculators from “day one” and passed from one group to another over the years. The needs of the lumber companies for food provided a new market for the farmers in the valley and the C&O provided easier access to distant markets. The jobs and business opportunities provided by the timbering operations allowed at least one or two generations of their sons and daughters to remain at home rather than having to leave the area to find employment. As has been recounted before, the timber cutting had negative impacts on the land and forests and there were certainly social impacts from the influx of people, some from other countries, that came with the railroad and timber development. But in terms of history this timber “boom” period was too short, only about sixty years, to radically change either the long-established economic or social situation in the Greenbrier Valley. (The major timbering was completed in less than thirty years.) As for the coming of people from other enthic groups to the valley during the timbering era, in the author’s opinion, at least, it is a shame that some of these new residents were not able to remain in order to provide a more diverse population today. Once the timber was cut, the departing timber companies and their employees did not leave behind an improvished population with no other way of making a living. Obviously, the economic boost provided by the mills was missed by many, but the agricultural base remained, as well as the railroad connecting the valley to the nation and various other improvements that had been put in place during the timbering period. Remaining from the boom timbering period were the two tanneries, the continuing lumber operation at Cass, and other smaller lumbering operations, which --- As the nation went into the Great Depression it may have been just as well for the people of the valley that the timber boom was over; the economic conditions of the 1930s would have brought it to a sudden halt. As it was the boom peaked before 1920 and the valley had been adjusting to The fact that today agriculture can support only a small part of the Greenbrier Valley‘s population has no connection with the timber development. Many other economic factors, both national and international, have brought about the major decrease in the number of people employed in farming. For this part of the state, it has even been suggested that the change of ownership from the lumber companies to the federal government for the Monongahela National Forest is a continuation of some type of evil land ownership by outside interests. This was certainly not the opinion of those alive at the time the cut-over land was being purchased by the federal government. Today, even though memories of the conditions of our forest land following timbering are almost gone, most people will probably agree that the existence of the Monongahela National Forest is a positive for the valley. Though it is true that the federal land might be considered to be owned “from afar,” the owners also include all of us who live in the valley. The land in the MNF is ours and open to all, a considerable difference from the company-owned land in much of the state, with the all too common “no trespassing” signs. Accusations that lumber companies were able to avoid the liability for the environmental impact they had on the land and then make a final profit by selling their cut-over land to the federal government is using a present-day attitude about corporate responsibility that generally did not exist at the time. Besides, we are far from prefect today in making corporations take responsibility for their
The Greenbrier Wilderness
E. D. Coontz
The miles of torn and wasted wood,
Where once a giant forest stood;
—– so dense with laurel and spruce
That the sun could seldom find excuse
To pierce these depths of woodland shade,
—- this wondrous woodland glad
Among deep-rooted trees of earth,
And Greenbrier’s soul was given birth
The waters pure and crystal clear,
With springs that burst from every where
But, there came that day of sacrifice
For this nature’s wooded paradise:
When man had laid his strings of steel,
That power the woodland soon must feel,
With ax and saw men followed fast,
To strip these hills of forests vast;
The few that failed to feel the stroke,
Beneath the hand of fire were broke,
The ghosts of trees stand here and there,
–rch by flame with branches bare.
What means that pile of rusted steel
That brush and bramble half conceal
What is that twisted coil of wire,
Half hidden in the boggish mire?
That crumbling pile of brick you see
Shows where the great boilers used to be
The pond – now home for croaking frogs,
Once covered by a thousand logs,
That grassy plot by yonder wood,
Shows where the horse’s stable stood
And just another ghastly scene,
That broken bridge ‘cross yonder stream
That tangled trail up yonder glen,
Was once the path of horse and men
Out here among the mossy stones,
We view a pile of bleaching bones,
A broken horse perhaps was shot,
His carcass left out here to rot,
Here two stones that mark a tomb,
Where some lone woods man met his doom,
A lonely grave o’er grown with grass
Is seen by few who daily pass.
Beneath the old abandoned grade,
The wood chuck burrows unafraid,
For nothing now disturbs his rest,
His domain here by far the best.
Out from a nook of sheltered shade,
The ruffed grouse struts all unafraid,
An eagle soars on dizzy heights
And owl voices stir upon the nights,
Ravens are talking on the hills,
Their voices mingling with the rills.
The mountains wrapped in slumber deep,
Silent rocks you soul to sleep,
Out here beneath the silent stars,
Now still – no hum of motor cars
What rest tired hearts so seldom meet,
No tramp of men on brick-paved street,
No rumbling of a noisy train,
To shake your nerves or wrack your brain.
The years have sped, the mills have died,
But they left their scars on every side,
A waste of briars and tangled vine,
Where once had stood the stately pine
Around yon green and grassy clump
The remnant of the rotting stump
Where nature once held regal sways
The herds man’s sheep come now to graze.
The camp with all its life is gone,
Some rotting boards are left alone,
Where voices rang now all is still,
For silent stands the noisy mill.
The woods-man’s voices all are dead,
Along the path where sportsmen tread.32

Footnotes

1 Forestry and Wood Industries, p 22 Ibid, pp 4, 653 PT, 1/15/1897 (from the Wheeling Intelligencer), Winchester is given as a resident of Buckhannon in the article and “a practical lumberman and is an authority with a national reputation.”4 PT, 11/4/19095 Reprinted in the PT, 4/27/19116 Forestry and Wood Industries, p 463-4, letter dated 8/24/19107 Rothkugel, “Management of Spruce and Hemlock Lands in West Virginia” 8 Forestry and Wood Industries, p 2679 PT, 3/5/189710 Shawkey, West Virginia, In History, Life, Literature and Industry, p 28311 PT, 5/21/190312 Randolph Enterprise, 12/20/190613 Dodrill, “Scraps From An Angler’s Note Book”14 PT, 8/29/191215 Williams, Americans and Their Forests, pp 144, 35316 Forestry and Wood Industries, p 36117 Forestry and Wood Industries, p 36118 Price, —- PT, 19 Kellogg, — PT, 9/9/190920 Forestry and Wood Industries, p 362; West Virginia Ency—-, p 25521 Forestry and Wood Industries, pp 462-46322 PT, 4/17/1913, reprinted from American Forestry, the Wilson family was involved in Greenbrier Valley logging with the mills at Wildell and Stillwell23 PCDB 60, p 370, 4/9/192324 PCDB 61, p 498, 1/10/1924; 62, p 371, 1/13/192525 The camps were Thornwood, Price, —-26 GCCC Cumberland Lumber Company vs. Daniel O’Connell, answer by O’Connell, —–27 PT, 1/4/189528 Bolgiano, The Appalachian Forest, pp 213-429 ibid, p 21530 Preston, “A Death in the Forest”31 100 years of Federal Forestry, p 2832 PT, 4/21/1938

Less than a human liLess than a human lifetime was all the time it took; starting in the early 1870s and completed by the early 1930s. In that period the pre-European settlement timber in the Upper Greenbrier Valley had been cut, almost down to every single tree. By the late 1800s and early 1900s the technology available to the lumber industry had made it very efficient in the removal of timber on a large scale. What was true in the Greenbrier Valley was also true in most of eastern West Virginia and much of the rest of the state during the same period. The state’s magnificent forests had been turned into boards, flooring, lath, pulpwood, tan bark, barrel staves, ship pins, shingles, utility poles, and forest floor litter well before nascent efforts to protect some of the nation’s pre-European settlement forests and introduce sustainable forestry practices had a foothold in this state.
The attitude of many towards the forest was that the timber supply was endless. In his 1911 book, Forestry and Wood Industries, published by the West Virginia Geological Survey, Alonzo B. Brooks summarized this feeling:
The need of preserving the forests of this country was not apparent to many persons 200 years ago. The pioneer settlers of our Eastern states built their homes in what they considered an almost boundless wilderness. Trees were regarded by them, naturally, as obstacles in the way of improvement, for they were removed with great labor and could not be sold or given away. The openings first made were insignificant in comparison with the vast woodlands which surrounded them. But this was not long the case. As the population increased and settlements were extended from year to year, the small cornfields were widened into extensive farms; fires began to take their toll from the forests in the region of settlements; and the occupation of lumbering began. In the course of time the various agents of destruction, working together, produced a serious condition in the forests. The condition was not readily observed because the people had not been trained to expect trouble from such a source. The conception that the forest was boundless and inexhaustible had been transmitted from one generation to another until it had become fixed in the minds of the inhabitants as a firm belief. With this inherited handicap, therefore, the present generations were slow in believing even what reason taught them was true.1
Brooks noted that West Virginia originally was almost unbroken forest covering more than 15.5 million acres and containing 150 billion feet of timber. At the time he was writing 60% of the state was still timbered. However, in 1910 there were 83 large band and about 900 portable sawmills operating with the capacity to cut all the timber in the state in the next 16 years. He predicted that by 1940 none of the band mills would be in operation due to the depletion of the timber.2
The lumber companies working in the Greenbrier Valley certainly seem to have operated under this belief of unlimited timber supply. Most came to West Virginia following the depletion of timber in other states and probably assumed they could move on to other areas after this state was cut over.
Arthur H. Winchester, who was an investor in West Virginia timber lands in the late 1800s (including the Cheat Mountain land that he purchased for Dewing and Sons that was later purchased by the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company), is reported to have stated in a hearing before the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representative in 1897 “We [West Virginia] don’t need scientific forestry down our way. The growth of our timber is so rapid that the forests restore themselves without artificial help as fast as they can be cut away.” What Winchester was claiming the state’s timber industry did need was the imposition of tariffs to protect it from cheaper lumber being imported from Canada.3
At least partially due to this attitude, during the period when the pre-settlement timber was being stripped from the mountainsides and valley land in the Upper Greenbrier Valley very little was done in the way of reforestation. The brief employment by the George Craig and Sons Lumber Company of a trained forester was related in the article on that company (see Winterburn, Chapter X). There are a few references to the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company making an effort to replant the area the company logged. One was in a news article at the time of absorption of the West Virginia Spruce Lumber Company into the parent company in 1909. The article included:
Another interesting feature of their operations has been the adoption of scientific forestry methods in their lumbering, which, according to their experience to date, assures them practically an inexhaustible supply of timber on their present holdings
Only the right timber has been logged, they are constantly replanting, and today they have 25,000 acres which has been logged over which is coming, both from seedling and young timber growth, to a condition which will permit of most profitable logging thereon again before they have anywhere near logged their entire premises.4
An article on the lumber operation at Cass in the American Lumberman in 1911 made a brief reference to replanting by W. Va. Pulp and Paper. Following comments on the company’s efforts to control fire, the article continues: “Only about 1500 of its 25,000 acres of the company’s cut over lands have been burned over and these are being carefully replanted, as are other areas where the young timber left is not sufficient to provide a heavy future growth. In replanting, the men pick up the small spruce which are to be found in abundance among the older timber and these are put into ground within twenty-four hours.”5
WVP&P wrote to Brooks in 1910 and reported the company had planted 25,000 spruce trees in 1909, with about 80% growing a year later, and 170,000 spruce and 2000 yellow poplars in 1910. In the letter the company expressed it great interest “in the reproduction of forests on our property and it is our present intention to do everything in our power in the future to save and propagate the timber.” The letter stated that timber under about ten inches was being left. “We confidently believe that if the fire can be kept out of the old slashing that our property will reproduce itself rapidly and that by the time we have lumbered over it, it will be possible to go over it again, and while of course we will not be able to secure the quantity of large lumber, we can make the crops perpetual for pulp.”6
However, other than these limited efforts – and WVP&P seems to have discontinued its reforestation program after a few years – the companies cutting the Greenbrier Valley timber did it with no particular thought to the future.
But, as always in judging the actions of those who came before us, we must be careful not to use the standards and knowledge of our time. Particularly, since in many parts of the world, including parts of environmentally “enlightened” North America, the forests are continued to be attacked as if they go on forever. Our ancestors could only see unending forests as they climbed to the top of each mountain – today we can see the entire earth virtually at once from space. Yet, we are generally behaving as a lumber company of 1900 without the excuse of limited vision. Our approach today to other natural resources, particularly oil and natural gas, is not much different. As the 21st Century gets underway we still seem to operate mainly on the belief that these resources are infinite.
The generation that is using “mountain top removal” for the production of coal is not exactly in a position to criticize those who clear cut the timber of our West Virginia mountains. The trees have regrown; the mountains will not. True, acres of ugliness did follow the timbering. Clear cut sites are not pretty and fires followed the logging in many areas, burning the left behind debris and in places burning off the eons-old accumulation of humus down to bare rock. But trees have regrown and even the areas of the worse fires are slowly healing. The ugliness and waste of mountain top removal will remain with us and the generations to come, forever.
Attitude was not the only reason for the “clear cut” timbering that was done; economics played a major role. Even lumbermen who may have had the foresight to realize that the amount of timber was finite were confined by the economics of the business. The average company held a relatively small amount of timber and reaching it required for most the major cost of building a railroad. There was no way a company could regain its expenses and pay its debts if it built a railroad some distance into a section of its holdings, take only part of the timber, and then remove the track, planning to relay it back a number of years later to take some additional timber. The only way to make money on the investment of money for timber, equipment, and railroad construction was to take it all. Only a few companies owned large enough amounts of timber land to be able to look forward to a return to the cut-over portion of their holdings.
In his 1908 article on forest land management in West Virginia, Max Rothkugel recommended the use of portable mills, 15,000 to 20,000 feet per day capacity, rather than large capacity mills, of up to 100,000 capacity. “Big mills with their large investment in equipment and in rails must disappear before management of the present stands can be practiced. With a comparatively small investment tied up in mills and railroads the forest can be constantly maintained in a productive condition and still a good interest percent on the original investment would be assured.”7
In the Upper Greenbrier Valley, the only companies with large enough land holdings to consider being able to recut their own land were St. Lawrence Boom and Manufacturing/Sherwood Companies, Greenbrier River Lumber Company, and West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company. There is no evidence that SLB&M/Sherwood ever made any effort in reforestation. GRLCo was mainly a land holding company for John McGraw and, other than the small amount cut in the early 1900s, sold its property to other lumber companies.
As noted before there are a few references to reforestation by WVP&P in early years. One of these is in the 1911 book, Forestry and Wood Industries. Under the Randolph County section, there is statement: “It is gratifying to note that at least one lumber company – the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company – is making extensive plantations of spruce trees on its cut-over lands near the head of Shavers Fork of Cheat river.” However, no evidence exists that the effort continued on a long-term basis. Mower Lumber did cut second growth timber on its former WVP&P land, but this was due to the efforts of Mother Nature and not planned reforestation.8
As early as the mid-1890s the logging had been going on for a sufficient length of time that the change it created in the landscape was becoming obvious. In early 1897 the Times made the following observation:
The disappearance of the logs and timbermen have made a great change in the appearance of things between Marlinton and Driscol. Our old acquaintances, the logs, will hardly be recognizable when they return in a year or two as furniture, goods-boxes and picture frames. It makes a great difference with logs, as well as boys, to go abroad, remain awhile and then come back to serve some useful or ornamental purpose.9
However, there were voices during the boom period expressing regret about the destruction of the area’s forests and concern about the future timber supply.
In 1898, even before the major logging had begun in the Greenbrier Valley, the West Virginia Board of Agriculture declared “Owing to the rapid destruction of our forests it is high time that something be done looking toward the preservation and protection of our timber land.”10
In a 1903 article on the operations of WVP&P on Cheat Mountain, Marlinton resident Norman Price commented, “It is a pity that the government did not set aside the forests about the headwaters of our rivers as a forest reserve.” However, he followed that sentence with “However the sacrifice of the trees has brought capital to be invested in the county, and therewith we must rest content.”11
On December 5, 1906, a traveling salesman of Sure Shot tobacco by the name of Ignatius Brennen sat on the end of a crosstie at Stony Bottom and wrote the following poem, presumably to his wife or girlfriend.
“In the Greenbrier Mountains”
With a pad on my knee, dear,
I’m penning to thee dear,
A line of myself emblamatic,
Through not sentimental,
Nor yet Continental,
But very much straight Democratic.
In the Greenbrier Mountains,
Where natural fountains,
Have slacked the wild deer of its thirsting,
I’m plying my trading,
And green haunts invading,
And quaffing from water to bursting.
When God made this Creation,
His intention, I’d reckon,
Was a home for the wild beasts and savage,
But the white man came onward,
Moonward and sunward,
Its fine virgin forests to ravage.
The forests depleted,
The rape is completed,
What nature held sacred has vanished,
The fawn and its mother,
And lo-the poor Indian, are banished.
The fir and the pine tree,
The hemlock and vine-tree,
Exchanges of sorrow are granting,
The fire-ravished hill-side,
The snake haunted rill-side,
Inanimate requiems are chanting.
The Greenbrier River,
Rolls on with a quiver,
Polluted with chemical lotion,
It hastes to connection,
In southwest direction,
Contented when lost in the ocean.
I turn back the pages,
And stop with the ages,
When nature was absolute master,
Then picture the white man,
(Lets hope he’s a right man),
Who wrough all this awful disaster.12
The author would love to know what brought about this outburst from Mr. Brennen (an early environmentalist?). Perhaps "chemical lotion" referred to some discharge from the tannery at Frank? It would seem something more likely to be written about twenty years later; in 1906 the stripping of the mountainsides of timber had only begun. In an article written after logging was underway on the North Fork of the Cherry River, W. C. Dodrill described the impact on that watershed and compared it with the adjoining Cranberry River. An object lesson in the changed conditions brought about by cutting away the timber may be seen along the divide between Cherry and Cranberry. On the Cherry side all the timber in some place has been cut down except the birch that is not of the best quality and a few, very few, other species that are worthless for lumber. Worthless and broken logs strew the ground. Tramway roads leading to the tops of the hills are found at short intervals. Each rain cuts these deeper and washes away the humus that is so essential to plant life. Nothing remains to remind one of the greatness of this beautiful old forest but the decaying stumps. By counting the ring growths of some of the black spruce stumps it was found that the tree had been nourished by the rains of more than 500 summers and had defied the storms of as many winters. In this region destruction and desolation is depicted everywhere. But what are the conditions existing on the other side of the divided where the woodman's axe has been withheld! The forest admirer may wander for days among the grand old trees that have stood for centuries. The ground is covered with a soft carpet of moss and decaying leaves. The water that falls in the form of rain or snow gradually sinks into the ground. What is not utilized by the trees seeks a lower level by a slow process. Dodrill made note of the difference in water runoff between the two areas, with the Cherry nearly always muddy and the Cranberry nearly always clear; greater floods in the former and fewer in the later; also, more water in the Cranberry than the Cherry than the time of drought. In noting that "Water supply is as much a question in the conservation of the forests as the timber supply. One in a measure depends upon the other." Dodrill was giving one of the arguments that lead to the creation of eastern national forests. He also noted the lesser number of birds found on the Cherry since lumber operations began. Within two years. timbering is to begin on the Cranberry, Dodrill wrote, "When this occurs one of the most beautiful and picturesque mountain streams in the Appalachian region will be robbed of its greatest glory . . . "13 A 1912 article in the Times with the title "Timber," it was noted that timber production was already more that thought possible and there was still a lot to be cut: The lumberman have already taken from this county threes times as much timber as the highest guess ever made at it prior to the building of the railroad. Three hundred million a year for the past ten years is a low estimate and three billion feet of lumber has been shipped from the mills and great areas of timber are not touched yet. About one third of the timber has been cut is one guess at the present situation, though that runs the amount of timber to fabulous figures. Just when the timber of this county will give out is a hazy and uncertain period, and the subject is not a welcome one.14 At the time the timbering that would strip the Upper Greenbrier Valley of its trees was getting underway, there were the beginnings of national concern about the massive cutting of the nation's forests. It was probably the removal of forests to provide land for agriculture that began the first concerns about whether the wanton destruction of forest land was a good thing. It was "agriculturalists who saw and appreciated what clearing could do to the land itself, to the soil, the stream flow, the microclimate, and the fish and animal life." As early as 1818 former President James Madison noted that all of the errors in the rural economy of the United States "none is so much to be regretted, perhaps because none is so difficult to repair, as the injurious and excessive destruction of timber and firewood."15 Madison was early in his concern about forest removal, but by the latter part of the Nineteenth Century there were a number of people expressing concern over the destruction of the forests, both for farms and lumber. One of the first given credit for bringing attention to the rapid deforestation and it impacts was George Perkins Marsh with his book Man and Nature, published in 1864. This is a remarkable book, considered by some to be the beginning of the modern environmental movement. One of the most influencial books of its time, second perhaps only to one published five year's earlier, Darwin's Origin of Species. The brief amount of space the author can give to Man and Nature in this writing cannot begin to ----- If one did not know the date it was published, the insight Marsh shows into environmental problems caused by our misuse of our resources reads like the date was 1964 rather than 100 years earlier. Marsh was born in 1901 in the Green Mountains of Vermont, at Woodstock, at the time when the mountains were truly green. He Spending five years in Turkey as -- and then the last 21 years of his life as ambassador to Italy gave Marsh a close look how George Marsh delivered an address before the Agricultural Society of Rutland County, Vermont, on - - - -- - in 1847. Marsh had worn many hats over his lifetime: lawyer, journalist, sheep farmer, mill owner, linguistics scholar, and diplomat. He designed the Washington Monument and co-founded the Smithsonian Institution. But it was in his role as United States senator that he addressed the Agricultural Society. He was the first person to publicly raise the issue of manmade climate change, and his speech helped spark the conservation movement. In his speech, Marsh said: "Man cannot at his pleasure command the rain and the sunshine, the wind and frost and snow, yet it is certain that climate itself has in many instances been gradually changed and ameliorated or deteriorated by human action. The draining of swamps and the clearing of forests perceptibly effect the evaporation from the earth [...] The same causes modify the electrical condition of the atmosphere and the power of the surface to reflect, absorb and radiate the rays of the sun, and consequently influence the distribution of light and heat, and the force and direction of the winds. Within narrow limits too, domestic fires and artificial structures create and diffuse increased warmth, to an extent that may effect vegetation." He was talking about concepts familiar to us now as the urban heat island effect and the greenhouse effect. As a result of his speech, Marsh went on to publish a book titled Man and Nature: or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action (1864). "[M]an is everywhere a disturbing agent," Marsh wrote. "Wherever he plants his foot, the harmonies of nature are turned to discords. The proportions and accommodations which insured the stability of existing arrangements are overthrown. Indigenous vegetable and animal species are extirpated, and supplanted by others of foreign origin, spontaneous production is forbidden or restricted, and the face of the earth is either laid bare or covered with a new and reluctant growth of vegetable forms, and with alien tribes of animal life. Marsh's book was used by those with a growing realization of the for government owned forest reserves to support their case. These efforts resulted in the first national forests being established in the 1890s. These actions followed the passage of the Forest Reserve Act in 1891 authorizing the president to set aside forest reserves from the public domain. At first these lands were managed by the Department of the Interior. Also in 1891, a Division of Forestry was created within the Department of Agriculture. In 1905 the Forestry Bureau was renamed the Forest Service and the forest reserves came under its jurisdiction. Clifford Pinchot was the first head of the USFS. Moving to the state level, in the early 1900s some actions were beginning for the protection of the state’s forest lands. In 1906, a pamphlet entitled The Needs of Forest Protection in West Virginia and Suggestions for a Forest Law was published by Hu Maxwell. He noted the value of the state’s forests for timber and influence on erosion and water flow, their destruction by fire and careless lumbering, and lack of action to prevent waste. However, the law proposed in the pamphlet was considered in the 1907 Legislature but failed to pass.16 Governor William Dawson appointed a three-member Conservation Commission in 1908, with Maxwell as one of the members. The Commission’s report, published in the fall of that year, devoted a major part to a discussion of the forest resources of the state and made recommendations for policies to protect these resources.17 also in 1908? West Virginia University established a Chair of Forestry as a department in its College of Agriculture and selected A. W. Nolan as the school’s first professor of forestry - Brooks, p 361-2 The West Virginia Forestry Association was organized at a meeting in January 1908 at WVU by representatives from 23 counties of the state Brooks p 362 PT, 3/12/1908 - meeting was on Jan. 24, reference in the article to the new department of forestry at WVU, Prof. A. W. Nolan, professor in charge of the new department, elected secretary of the WVFA - objects of the new group included: conservation of forest resources of the state; bring about better state laws for conserving and utilizing forests; take steps to reforesting denuded lands and exempting of woodlands from taxation; encourage tree planting; educate youth to appreciate the economic as well as esthetic value of trees In Forestry Quarterly, Vol. VI, p 329, from Southern Lumberman, 2/15/1908, W. Va. has
added a forestry school the state university
a state forestry association has been formed
State Board of Trade has appointed a committee to draft forest laws and police for the Legislature at its next session
In the early 1900s, just as the timbering boom in the Greenbrier Valley was getting up a full head of steam, The Pocahontas Times printed two articles which warned of the rate at which the nation was cutting its timber resource.
The first was in 1907 with the reprint of an article by an U. S. Department of Agriculture forester, Overton W. Price. Price began his article by noting that the lumber industry in the United States ranked fourth among the manufacturing industries of the country, producing products with an annual value of $566,090,000 and providing employment for considerably more than a million people. He noted rapid improvements in tools and machinery that had taken place in the industry in the previous fifty years. “In effective methods for the harvesting and manufacturing of lumber, the American lumberman has no superior, . . .”
However, Price quickly got to the main point of his article which was that the rapid development of the industry “has been fundamentally unsound in principle” and was heading for failure due to the rate at which it was depleting the resource upon which it depended. “The havoc which has been wrought in the forest of the United States has turned trees into money, but the balance on the wrong side of the sheet by rendering vast areas unproductive.” The sentence quoted in the last paragraph concluded “nor is he equaled in his disregard for the future of the forest which he cuts.” Price noted that although with the data then available “there is no way to foretell accurately the time necessary to exhaust this supply of merchantable timber,” he supports his argument about the dangers to the future of the lumber industry by noting that already were the supplies of timber of some species were failing and some almost exhausted. He gave as examples black walnut, white pine (“growing rapidly to be a rarity on the market”) and spruce for pulpwood. The list of species once considered valueless were being harvested more and being accepted as merchantable due to the exhaustion of more valuable kinds, Price wrote.
“It is natural that the lumberman should not turn eagerly from a system whose only aim is to secure the highest possible present profit from the forest to one which includes provisions for the production of a second crop from the lumbered area,” Price stated. However, he wrote that the time for “practical forestry has fully arrived.”18
The second article in the paper was excerpts from a 1909 report issued by the U. S. Forest Service, “The Timber Supply of the United States,” that claimed that the nation was cutting its forests faster than the annual growth. The report stated the nation was cutting its forests three times as fast as new timber was growing. “There is menace in the continuance of such conditions. While we might never reach absolute timber exhaustion, the unrestricted exploitation of our forests in the past has already had serious effects and it will have worse if it is allowed to continue unchecked.” White pine was used as one of the examples in the report. “White pine, for instance, which was once considered inexhausible, has fallen off seventy per cent in cut since 1890, and more than forty-five per cent since 1900.”
The report noted “The fact that timber has been cheap and abundant has made us careless of its production and reckless in its use.” It went on to give the example of Germany which was managing its forests so that wood growth exceeded timber production. “But to reach the necessary condition of equilibrium between timber production and consumption will take many years of vigorous effort by individual forest owners, by the States, and by the National Government. None of them can solve the problem alone; all must work together.”19
The office of Forest, Game, and Fish Warden was created by the Legislature in 1909, to replace the existing Fish and Game Warden position. J. A. Viquesney was appointed to the new position. The 1909 law also called for forest protection and research and provided for punishment of individuals and company owners who intentionally or carelessly set forest fires.20
In his 1911 book, Brooks surveyed what other states were doing to protect their forests and made a number of recommendations. The first was for the appointment of a state forester with duties in the areas of education, advice to private land owners, forest fire control, collection of data on forest and forest industries, and determining whether state-owned lands should be retained for forestry purposes. To encourage tree planting he recommended a law that would exempt from taxes for a period of years land that is planted to carefully prepared specifications or provide for a scale of rebates on such lands. Also recommended was for the state to agree to the acquisition of land by the federal government for a national forest.21
In an article in American Forestry magazine in 1913, Merritt Wilson, a West Virginia lumberman, wrote that unless the effort is made “to protect the growing timber and reforest the cutover lands of West Virginia that the lumber industry, one of the leading industries of our state, will soon be almost a thing of the past. The uncut area is getting smaller every year and it would seem that the only way to have a supply for the future is to grow it.” He noted that this state is “perhaps as well adapted to growing timber as any State east of the Mississippi river, unless it is Maine, and while it is well adapted to growing timber, much of the area is of little value for anything else, owing to the rough and mountainous character of the country.” Later in his article, Wilson gave his estimate of 12,000 square miles of the state “better adapted for growing timber than anything else.”
Wilson recommended the creation of a state Forestry Commission with the power to buy cut-over lands. Like Brooks, he also recommended using the tax laws to encourage the setting aside of land for reforestation.
He stressed that fire was the greatest threat to growing new forests. He noted that the cause of most forest fires were sparks from railroad and logging company locomotives and fires set by farmers to make more range for livestock, as well fires set by those who just want to see the woods burn. Lack of care by the railroad companies came under particular criticism from Wilson. “It is our opinion that companies and individuals carelessly letting fires get started should be made to pay damages for any timber and other property destroyed.”22
At the national level forested lands were being protected in the growing national forest system. However, all the first national forests had to be located in the west, as that is where the federal government owned land. The government had no authority to purchase private land for preserves. Following the establishment of the national forests in the west, efforts began to have legislation passed to allow the establishment of federal forest reserves in the Appalachians. Those in favor stressed the importance of forests in preventing flooding and siltation and regulation of stream flow. Following bad flooding in 1907 with millions of dollars of damages along the Monongahela and Ohio Rivers, the role of the cutover mountains in the headwaters in making the situation worse became obvious. Finally in 1911 Congress passed the Weeks Act which authorized the federal purchase of forests to protect the headwaters of navigable streams.
The first purchase within West Virginia for national forest purpose was in Tucker County in 1915. In 1920 the Monongahela purchase area was proclaimed as the Monongahela National Forest. The first property purchased for the MNF in the Greenbrier Valley was from the George Craig and Sons Lumber Company in April 1923. The tract contained 9,674 acres on — 23
The State of West Virginia was also taking additional action to protect the state’s forest lands. In 1921 the West Virginia Game and Fish Commission was created for the purpose of — need copy of law
The first tracts purchased by the Commission were in the Greenbrier Valley. In January 1924 A. D. Neill sold 10,847 acres to the Commission and a year later 4,546 acres were purchased from the Watoga Land Association. Today the former tract makes up most of Seneca State Forest and the other about half of Watoga State Park.24
As related in the articles on the individual lumber companies, most of their lands went into government ownership after being cut. In 2011 the Monongahela National Forest owns —- acres in Greenbrier and Pocahontas Counties and state parks and forests make up another —- acres of mostly former lumber company land.
The Fish and Game Commission also had responsibilities for a forest fire protection system.
Perhaps find somewhere in the fire discussion to fit in quotes from:
PT, 10/31/1901 – “This section has been scourged with fires several times within the past two years where forest fires were never known before, the woods being too dense and damp to burn, but with the opening up of farms and the cutting of the timber the woods are becoming dry.” from article on a fire on Laurel Creek (of Williams River)
PT, 11/5/1931 – Forest fires burned 64,110 acres in the county, January 1922 to January 1931 – estimated timber damage, $135,984
PT, 10/15/1914 Lookout stations in Pocahontas County were on Marlin Mountain at Mt. View Orchard, Briery Knob, and Bald Knob. “The country covered by the Marlin Mountain lookout is the Greenbrier Valley from the Alleghany top to the top of the high dividing ridge between the Greenbrier, and Cheat, Elk, Williams and Cranberry, as far north as Cass and as far south as Spice Run.”
Shawkey, p 286, F&G C installed 34 steel fire towers “within past five years” – “put nearly one-half of the timber area of the State, which is seriously subject to forest fires, under the observation of the rangers who are on duty constantly during the dry weather periods of the year.”
Despite all the human tragedy associated with the Great Depression of the 1930s, it reduced the demand for timber and thus reduced the amount of cutting, giving forests the opportunity to recover from the over cutting of the previous half-century. Marginal farm land was abandoned as the nation slid into depression and allowed to return to timberland.
The Depression also produced also one of the most important conservation efforts in the nation’s history, the Civilian Conservation Corps. Within the geographic area covered by this writing a total of fourteen CCC camps were established. Some had a brief existence while others were open for almost the entire period of the CCC program. All did work in the areas of reforestation, forest fire control, development of parks —- that are still obvious today.25
In 1933 the W. Va. Legislature replaced the Forest, Game and Fish Commission with the Conservation Commission (now the Department of Natural Resources) — allow state to work with the CCC – This law also established the position of state forester — need law
At West Virginia University, the Chair of Forestry became the School of Forestry in 1935 — check details
The good work of natural forces, with the human assistance related above, have restored the forests to the mountains and bottom lands of the Greenbrier Valley and at first glance they would look very familiar to any early settler who might by some way be able to return to the valley. Obviously, the vast acres of cleared farmland would be different than the few small clearings found by the original settlers, but the forested mountains would seem the same. As was the case 300 years ago, there is a progression of tree species as altitude changes, with the spruce on the highest ridges.
However, differences would be quickly noticed by our reincarnated pioneer. Today’s forest of second and third growth trees would look much different than the mostly mature forest found by the early settlers. The proportion of the various species would be considerably different now, with some species found by the original settlers non-existent or greatly reduced in extent.
Some of the differences in today’s forest from the forest that existed 300 years ago are the natural changes that occur when forests regrow from a disturbance. At one time it was believed that the climax forest in a given area was permanent; following a destruction of a section of forest, the eventual mature forest would be the same as was there before. This has found not to be the case since it takes up to hundreds of years for a forest to become mature and conditions of climate and other factors affecting forests are not the same over time. Other changes from the forest the first Europeans found are more directly the result of human activity.
One difference is the acreages of white pine, red spruce, and hemlock are much reduced from the forest the first settlers found. Whether this is a temporary condition as the forests recover from the clear-cut logging operations and grow their way towards maturity (assuming we would let them do this) or a permanent change in our forests, only time will tell.
As the lumbering operations were just getting underway, nature was making changes in the forests. In the documents in a — court case was the following statement by Daniel O’Connell:
Respondent further states that whether it is generally known or not, it is a fact, that Pine timber in that section within the last two years has been seriously prayed upon by a insect styled amongst lumbermen as “the bug”.
Mr. Brewer, as the respondent is informed and believes, becoming uneasy lest some of his pine timber should be lost to him on account of this insect decided to cut some of the timber of that character standing upon these lands during the present [1893-94] logging season.26
The writer of a news item in January 1895 noted “Everything has combined against lumbering the past few years. Bugs destroyed the timber, the rains ceased, and the price has fallen.”27
“The bug” referred by O’Connell is the southern pine beetle (Dendroctonus frontalis). This insect is one of the most destructive insects of pines in the southern United States
Forestry Quarterly, Vol IX, 1911, No. 3, September 1911 – a news note on the southern pine beetle states “It appears, however, that only at long intervals does it increase to such numbers as to cause widespread depredations, such as, for example, the great invasion of 1890 – 1893 in the Virginias.”
CWP, PT, 12/19/1935, refers to the southern pine beetle taking out the yellow pine east of the GR "more than forty years ago" "I remember being taken to a high mountain to look out over the Greenbrier peniplain (sic) and to see vast stretches of country brown as a sheep skin form the dead pines. This tree was superceded (sic) by the oaks, soft maple, hickory, and where the ground was too thin for better species of trees, chinquepin oak and bull pine." At least the southern pine beetle is a natural part of the North American ecosystem and the native trees have evolved ways to survive attacks by it. Unfortunately, such is not the case with imported dangers to the forests, where the native tree species have no natural protection. One of the first things our returnee would probably notice is something that is not present in today’s forest - the magnificent American chestnut tree. Although to the settler most species were just trees that were in the way of establishing farms, the chestnut was a tree of great usefulness, both for its wood and its nuts that provided food for both man and animal. The absence of this tree is due to a natural cause, but it is humans and not nature that must take the blame. In the early 1900s, as the timbering in the valley was at its most intensive, the chestnut was under attack from a foreigner invader. Chinese chestnut trees imported from Asia for nursery stock brought with them a fungus that the native chestnut trees had no resistance to. In 1904 it was noticed that trees in the New York Zoological Park were dying. The spores of the fungus were carried by wind, bird, insects, and people throughout the tree’s range in the Appalachian Mountains. By 1910 American chestnut trees were dying across Pennsylvania and the blight was moving south at a rate of 50 miles a year. All efforts to stop the blight failed and by the 1950s the tree was virtually gone from Appalachian forests. There is some hope for the future of the American chestnut as a feature of the Appalachian forests. Even today chestnuts will grow from roots of long dead trees. However, before long the youthful chestnut succumb to the blight. But research efforts have been underway for a number of years to cross-breed with the blight resistant Chinese chestnut and eventually produce an American chestnut that is also blight resistant. Chestnut blight is itself merely the most dramatic symptom of epidemic in Appalachian forest, one that came in with the twentieth century but has hardly run its course. The globalization of the world’s economy is being accompanied by a less beneficial globalization of its ecology. International trade has opened the doors to some very undesirable immigrants. Brought in purposely for one reason or another, or unintentionally on lumber, furniture, exotic plants, and sundry other imports, more than a dozen introduced pests and diseases now assail Appalachia.28 Another example of an “on purpose” human decision that has resulted in a curse to our forests was bringing the gypsy moth, a native of Europe, to this country in -1869 -- 1868 -- in hopes of using it for silk production. Some escaped into the wild and trees began to die due to the defoliation caused by the gypsy moth caterpillars. From the initial defoliation in Massachusetts in 1889, the moth has moved its way south and west, reaching West Virginia in ----. Oak trees, valuable to both wildlife and timberman, have been particularly impacted by the gypsy moth. The moths are also partial to beech, pines, and hemlock. One author recently wrote that “if gypsy moths continue their recurrent pattern of eating all the oaks they can find, other species of trees will take over the dominance of the forests. That will mean fewer acorns, which now serve as the main substitute for chestnuts as wildlife food. The number of wild animals that Appalachian forests can support will take another sharp dip.”29 Fortunately, there is some good news with regard to this pest. A fungus from Japan has been found that attacks only the gypsy moth and has reduced the amount of acres defoliated by --- A pioneer returning to the valley a few years from now will probably find another of tree species common in his time, the hemlock, to be missing. Hemlock has made up a smaller percentage of second growth forest and now a tiny, less than 1/16th of an inch, Asian import, the hemlock woolly adelgid, is threatening to eliminate these magnificent trees from the forests of the eastern United States. It was first found found in 1951 in Richmond, Virginia, in a hemlock tree near Maymont Park. The park was originally a private estate and it is believed the insect may have come to this country with the establishment on the estate of a Japanese garden in 1911.30 There was no particular concern about this pest until the late 1980s when was found in a stand of hemlocks outside of the city. About the same time hemlocks were found to be invested with the woolly adelgid in Shenandoah National Park in Northern Virginia. By the mid-1990s most of hemlocks in the park were dead. The pest has been working its way north, west and south and is now found in sixteen states, covering about half the range of the two hemlock species in the east. In West Virginia, the insect has invaded almost half of the state’s counties. After being infected, a hemlock will die in about three years. There is a chemical treatment but it is expensive to apply and and repeated treatments are needed. Another disease caused by an import is white pine blister rust, caused by a fungus that came to --- The spruce budworm, coming from ----, attacks spruce, firs, tamarack, hemlocks, and pines. In recent decades even more horrors have come to the forests. These include: * Dogwood Anthracnose * Balsam Woolly Aphid * Adelges piceae * Dutch Bark Disease * Butternut Canker * Oak Wilt * Sudden Oak Death, Asian longhorn beetle, emerald ash borer
Sullivan, Rose, New Threats to Mountain State Trees Emerge, WV Wildlife Diversity News, WV DNR, Vol. 19 , No. 4, Winter 2003
Invasive plants impacting forests include: * autumn olive * multiflora rose * tree of heaven * barberry * crown vetch * garlic mustard * Asiatic bittersweet The fewer acres of white pine, spruce, and hemlock, mentioned before, would be a direct result of the lumbering operations. The white pine, the dominate species at lower elevations to the east of the river, now exists only in scattered stands. In its place today are ------- The fires that followed the logging were severe enough in some areas to burn away, not only the debris left behind by the loggers, but the soil itself, leaving only bedrock. Recovery of these areas is, of course, taking longer -- Air pollution has placed a strain on the acid rain - soil nutrient depletion Another environmental factor that is determining the future of our forests is climate change caused by global warming. While the argument goes on about about much of this is to be blamed on man’s activities (among politicians, not reputable scientists), the forests of the Greenbrier Valley, as elsewhere, are slowly changing under its impact. Dan Lewerenz, Associated Press, article in Charleston Gazette, 6/13/2003, "Oaks decline, maples move in", on decline of oaks, increase in maples. Reasons given are (1) fire suppression. Maples sensitive to fire and few used to survive ground fires - oaks use fire as part of natural regeneration. (2) decrease in soil quantity and quality. Soils washed away following clear cutting of 100 years ago and soil polluted by acid rain and stripped of important elements - maples more tolerant of acidic soils . (3) deer population increase. Deer would rather eat oak than maple. Another difference in today's forests as compared to what the original settlers found is in the areas where spruce timber is found. Although it hard to distinguish much of the trees today are Norway spruce rather than the native red spruce. This is another change based on decisions made by those concerned with the future of forests. Starting with Rothkugel, Norway spruce has been used for replanting areas where red spruce was the native tree -
need to find out how much Norway spruce seeding was done and how much of today’s spruce is red and how much Norway – need to confirm that Norway does a better job of surviving the conditions found in cut-over and often burned-over forest land as claimed in Carvel, “Arboreal Mysteries Unraveled”
But I should not end on a pessimistic note. Change is part of the natural scheme and will continue as long as this planet exists. How much the activities of humans have sped up and otherwise impacted this change is a matter of debate among scientists and politicians (more among the latter). Hopefully, before too many more years pass the so-called “intelligent” species will move from decision making based mostly on self-interest and short-term goals to more thoughts for the future of our fragile earth and the best-interest of our children and grandchildren. As for our forests, words written in a February 1, 1905, letter from Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson to Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot, are as true today as when written, “In the administration of the forest reserves it must be clearly borne in mind that all land is to be devoted to its most productive use of the permanent good of the whole people, and not for the temporary benefit of individuals or companies . . . “. . . where conflicting interests must be reconciled the question will always be decided from he standpoint of the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run.”31 Although, as related in the previous pages, the timbermen of the late 1800s and early 1900s did a very tho--- job of removing the trees from the Greenbrier Valley, virgin timber does exist in a few areas. The easiest to access is the Gaudineer Knob ----- . Here --- acres of timber were saved from the lumberman's axe and saw by ------ Baun refers to "A virgin forest area some three miles east of Linwood at the southern end of Back Allegheny Mountain (where it joins the southern end of Cheat Mountain) ...." p 82 Baun has photo on p 80 of virgin white oak near Anthonys Creek - Virginians for Wilderness website, http://asecular.com/forests/anthonycr.htm, Old Growth/Anthony Creek, locates what it thinks is on the east-facing slope just west of the North Fork
A. Price, PT, 12/28/1916, “A forest is a long time in growing, but they do grow.”
PT, 4/7/1927 article on the Upper Tract. “The Upper Tract has in it now the large and important town of Durbin, and one of the big tanneries of the country, but for the most part the land is regaining its wilderness estate, and soon it will be an ideal retreat for the lovers of nature, who will find all the delights of the forest and stream. Time will heal the hurts made by the timber operations, and the experts of the National Forest aid materially in its rejuvenation.”

Although this book is not intended to be a social history of this part of West Virginia, the author feels it would be irresponsible not to comment on some of the recent writings and books about the impact on the development of the natural resources of West Virginia has had on the people of the state and its environment. The usual theme of these books and articles is that it was a disaster, leaving behind an exploited and dispirited people, unable to cope with modern life and a ruined landscape. This analysis has been extended to all regions of the state and all resources, including the timbering in the Greenbrier Valley. Some of these writings, quite frankly, contain historical mistakes about the Greenbrier Valley which show a lack of historical research (or an interpretation of research to meet pre-conceived conclusions). Much of what the writers have said about the impact of development and the actions of developers (past and present) is true, but much is also total imagination. For the coal producing regions of West Virginia, much of what is written about the impacts of development on the land and people is, unfortunately true. However, the Greenbrier Valley and other parts of eastern West Virginia --- There is no argument that the timbering that took place from the late 1800s to about 1930 had major environmental impacts. This has been a major theme in this chapter. It is in discussing the impact on the people and society of the valley that recent authors have gone greatly off base. What is forgotten by these writers is that the valley had a long-established, viable economic base and settled population, based on agriculture, prior to the timber development, unlike much of the coal producing regions of the state, where the coal development was the first and virtually only aspect of the economy. The people of the Greenbrier Valley were not the stereotype “hillbillies” of books, movies, and recent social studies of the Appalachian Mountain states, but as educated -- as any -- In Pocahontas County, for example, three, not one, but three, preparatory schools for the University of Virginia were established in the 1840s. As related in Chapter I, by the time of the Civil War, a series of turnpikes connected the valley with the rest of Virginia. Lewisburg was an educational center The land purchased by the lumber companies was of little value to the agricultural based economy of the Greenbrier Valley. (References to the cost of removing timber to convert land to farm use were made in Chapter I.) The companies did not purchase land being used for agriculture (why would they?), except for sites along the railroad needed for the mills and mill towns. Generally most of these sites went back to agricultural use after the mills closed and remain so today. Did the local landowners get as much as they should have for their timber and timber land? Perhaps not, but this is a question that cannot be answered with certainty now. Getting any income from land that was useless for your main economic activity can only be considered a positive. (Considering the number of lumber company bankruptcies, some folks may have gotten too much for their timber.) The major tracts of land acquired for the lumber companies were not stolen from a group of illiterate farmers. Most of the timber acreage had been in the hands of speculators from “day one” and passed from one group to another over the years. The needs of the lumber companies for food provided a new market for the farmers in the valley and the C&O provided easier access to distant markets. The jobs and business opportunities provided by the timbering operations allowed at least one or two generations of their sons and daughters to remain at home rather than having to leave the area to find employment. As has been recounted before, the timber cutting had negative impacts on the land and forests and there were certainly social impacts from the influx of people, some from other countries, that came with the railroad and timber development. But in terms of history this timber “boom” period was too short, only about sixty years, to radically change either the long-established economic or social situation in the Greenbrier Valley. (The major timbering was completed in less than thirty years.) As for the coming of people from other enthic groups to the valley during the timbering era, in the author’s opinion, at least, it is a shame that some of these new residents were not able to remain in order to provide a more diverse population today. Once the timber was cut, the departing timber companies and their employees did not leave behind an improvished population with no other way of making a living. Obviously, the economic boost provided by the mills was missed by many, but the agricultural base remained, as well as the railroad connecting the valley to the nation and various other improvements that had been put in place during the timbering period. Remaining from the boom timbering period were the two tanneries, the continuing lumber operation at Cass, and other smaller lumbering operations, which --- As the nation went into the Great Depression it may have been just as well for the people of the valley that the timber boom was over; the economic conditions of the 1930s would have brought it to a sudden halt. As it was the boom peaked before 1920 and the valley had been adjusting to The fact that today agriculture can support only a small part of the Greenbrier Valley‘s population has no connection with the timber development. Many other economic factors, both national and international, have brought about the major decrease in the number of people employed in farming. For this part of the state, it has even been suggested that the change of ownership from the lumber companies to the federal government for the Monongahela National Forest is a continuation of some type of evil land ownership by outside interests. This was certainly not the opinion of those alive at the time the cut-over land was being purchased by the federal government. Today, even though memories of the conditions of our forest land following timbering are almost gone, most people will probably agree that the existence of the Monongahela National Forest is a positive for the valley. Though it is true that the federal land might be considered to be owned “from afar,” the owners also include all of us who live in the valley. The land in the MNF is ours and open to all, a considerable difference from the company-owned land in much of the state, with the all too common “no trespassing” signs. Accusations that lumber companies were able to avoid the liability for the environmental impact they had on the land and then make a final profit by selling their cut-over land to the federal government is using a present-day attitude about corporate responsibility that generally did not exist at the time. Besides, we are far from prefect today in making corporations take responsibility for their
The Greenbrier Wilderness
E. D. Coontz
The miles of torn and wasted wood,
Where once a giant forest stood;
—– so dense with laurel and spruce
That the sun could seldom find excuse
To pierce these depths of woodland shade,
—- this wondrous woodland glad
Among deep-rooted trees of earth,
And Greenbrier’s soul was given birth
The waters pure and crystal clear,
With springs that burst from every where
But, there came that day of sacrifice
For this nature’s wooded paradise:
When man had laid his strings of steel,
That power the woodland soon must feel,
With ax and saw men followed fast,
To strip these hills of forests vast;
The few that failed to feel the stroke,
Beneath the hand of fire were broke,
The ghosts of trees stand here and there,
–rch by flame with branches bare.
What means that pile of rusted steel
That brush and bramble half conceal
What is that twisted coil of wire,
Half hidden in the boggish mire?
That crumbling pile of brick you see
Shows where the great boilers used to be
The pond – now home for croaking frogs,
Once covered by a thousand logs,
That grassy plot by yonder wood,
Shows where the horse’s stable stood
And just another ghastly scene,
That broken bridge ‘cross yonder stream
That tangled trail up yonder glen,
Was once the path of horse and men
Out here among the mossy stones,
We view a pile of bleaching bones,
A broken horse perhaps was shot,
His carcass left out here to rot,
Here two stones that mark a tomb,
Where some lone woods man met his doom,
A lonely grave o’er grown with grass
Is seen by few who daily pass.
Beneath the old abandoned grade,
The wood chuck burrows unafraid,
For nothing now disturbs his rest,
His domain here by far the best.
Out from a nook of sheltered shade,
The ruffed grouse struts all unafraid,
An eagle soars on dizzy heights
And owl voices stir upon the nights,
Ravens are talking on the hills,
Their voices mingling with the rills.
The mountains wrapped in slumber deep,
Silent rocks you soul to sleep,
Out here beneath the silent stars,
Now still – no hum of motor cars
What rest tired hearts so seldom meet,
No tramp of men on brick-paved street,
No rumbling of a noisy train,
To shake your nerves or wrack your brain.
The years have sped, the mills have died,
But they left their scars on every side,
A waste of briars and tangled vine,
Where once had stood the stately pine
Around yon green and grassy clump
The remnant of the rotting stump
Where nature once held regal sways
The herds man’s sheep come now to graze.
The camp with all its life is gone,
Some rotting boards are left alone,
Where voices rang now all is still,
For silent stands the noisy mill.
The woods-man’s voices all are dead,
Along the path where sportsmen tread.32fetime was all the tLess than a human lifetime was all the time it took; starting in the early 1870s and completed by the early 1930s. In that period the pre-European settlement timber in the Upper Greenbrier Valley had been cut, almost down to every single tree. By the late 1800s and early 1900s the technology available to the lumber industry had made it very efficient in the removal of timber on a large scale. What was true in the Greenbrier Valley was also true in most of eastern West Virginia and much of the rest of the state during the same period. The state’s magnificent forests had been turned into boards, flooring, lath, pulpwood, tan bark, barrel staves, ship pins, shingles, utility poles, and forest floor litter well before nascent efforts to protect some of the nation’s pre-European settlement forests and introduce sustainable forestry practices had a foothold in this state.
The attitude of many towards the forest was that the timber supply was endless. In his 1911 book, Forestry and Wood Industries, published by the West Virginia Geological Survey, Alonzo B. Brooks summarized this feeling:
The need of preserving the forests of this country was not apparent to many persons 200 years ago. The pioneer settlers of our Eastern states built their homes in what they considered an almost boundless wilderness. Trees were regarded by them, naturally, as obstacles in the way of improvement, for they were removed with great labor and could not be sold or given away. The openings first made were insignificant in comparison with the vast woodlands which surrounded them. But this was not long the case. As the population increased and settlements were extended from year to year, the small cornfields were widened into extensive farms; fires began to take their toll from the forests in the region of settlements; and the occupation of lumbering began. In the course of time the various agents of destruction, working together, produced a serious condition in the forests. The condition was not readily observed because the people had not been trained to expect trouble from such a source. The conception that the forest was boundless and inexhaustible had been transmitted from one generation to another until it had become fixed in the minds of the inhabitants as a firm belief. With this inherited handicap, therefore, the present generations were slow in believing even what reason taught them was true.1
Brooks noted that West Virginia originally was almost unbroken forest covering more than 15.5 million acres and containing 150 billion feet of timber. At the time he was writing 60% of the state was still timbered. However, in 1910 there were 83 large band and about 900 portable sawmills operating with the capacity to cut all the timber in the state in the next 16 years. He predicted that by 1940 none of the band mills would be in operation due to the depletion of the timber.2
The lumber companies working in the Greenbrier Valley certainly seem to have operated under this belief of unlimited timber supply. Most came to West Virginia following the depletion of timber in other states and probably assumed they could move on to other areas after this state was cut over.
Arthur H. Winchester, who was an investor in West Virginia timber lands in the late 1800s (including the Cheat Mountain land that he purchased for Dewing and Sons that was later purchased by the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company), is reported to have stated in a hearing before the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representative in 1897 “We [West Virginia] don’t need scientific forestry down our way. The growth of our timber is so rapid that the forests restore themselves without artificial help as fast as they can be cut away.” What Winchester was claiming the state’s timber industry did need was the imposition of tariffs to protect it from cheaper lumber being imported from Canada.3
At least partially due to this attitude, during the period when the pre-settlement timber was being stripped from the mountainsides and valley land in the Upper Greenbrier Valley very little was done in the way of reforestation. The brief employment by the George Craig and Sons Lumber Company of a trained forester was related in the article on that company (see Winterburn, Chapter X). There are a few references to the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company making an effort to replant the area the company logged. One was in a news article at the time of absorption of the West Virginia Spruce Lumber Company into the parent company in 1909. The article included:
Another interesting feature of their operations has been the adoption of scientific forestry methods in their lumbering, which, according to their experience to date, assures them practically an inexhaustible supply of timber on their present holdings
Only the right timber has been logged, they are constantly replanting, and today they have 25,000 acres which has been logged over which is coming, both from seedling and young timber growth, to a condition which will permit of most profitable logging thereon again before they have anywhere near logged their entire premises.4
An article on the lumber operation at Cass in the American Lumberman in 1911 made a brief reference to replanting by W. Va. Pulp and Paper. Following comments on the company’s efforts to control fire, the article continues: “Only about 1500 of its 25,000 acres of the company’s cut over lands have been burned over and these are being carefully replanted, as are other areas where the young timber left is not sufficient to provide a heavy future growth. In replanting, the men pick up the small spruce which are to be found in abundance among the older timber and these are put into ground within twenty-four hours.”5
WVP&P wrote to Brooks in 1910 and reported the company had planted 25,000 spruce trees in 1909, with about 80% growing a year later, and 170,000 spruce and 2000 yellow poplars in 1910. In the letter the company expressed it great interest “in the reproduction of forests on our property and it is our present intention to do everything in our power in the future to save and propagate the timber.” The letter stated that timber under about ten inches was being left. “We confidently believe that if the fire can be kept out of the old slashing that our property will reproduce itself rapidly and that by the time we have lumbered over it, it will be possible to go over it again, and while of course we will not be able to secure the quantity of large lumber, we can make the crops perpetual for pulp.”6
However, other than these limited efforts – and WVP&P seems to have discontinued its reforestation program after a few years – the companies cutting the Greenbrier Valley timber did it with no particular thought to the future.
But, as always in judging the actions of those who came before us, we must be careful not to use the standards and knowledge of our time. Particularly, since in many parts of the world, including parts of environmentally “enlightened” North America, the forests are continued to be attacked as if they go on forever. Our ancestors could only see unending forests as they climbed to the top of each mountain – today we can see the entire earth virtually at once from space. Yet, we are generally behaving as a lumber company of 1900 without the excuse of limited vision. Our approach today to other natural resources, particularly oil and natural gas, is not much different. As the 21st Century gets underway we still seem to operate mainly on the belief that these resources are infinite.
The generation that is using “mountain top removal” for the production of coal is not exactly in a position to criticize those who clear cut the timber of our West Virginia mountains. The trees have regrown; the mountains will not. True, acres of ugliness did follow the timbering. Clear cut sites are not pretty and fires followed the logging in many areas, burning the left behind debris and in places burning off the eons-old accumulation of humus down to bare rock. But trees have regrown and even the areas of the worse fires are slowly healing. The ugliness and waste of mountain top removal will remain with us and the generations to come, forever.
Attitude was not the only reason for the “clear cut” timbering that was done; economics played a major role. Even lumbermen who may have had the foresight to realize that the amount of timber was finite were confined by the economics of the business. The average company held a relatively small amount of timber and reaching it required for most the major cost of building a railroad. There was no way a company could regain its expenses and pay its debts if it built a railroad some distance into a section of its holdings, take only part of the timber, and then remove the track, planning to relay it back a number of years later to take some additional timber. The only way to make money on the investment of money for timber, equipment, and railroad construction was to take it all. Only a few companies owned large enough amounts of timber land to be able to look forward to a return to the cut-over portion of their holdings.
In his 1908 article on forest land management in West Virginia, Max Rothkugel recommended the use of portable mills, 15,000 to 20,000 feet per day capacity, rather than large capacity mills, of up to 100,000 capacity. “Big mills with their large investment in equipment and in rails must disappear before management of the present stands can be practiced. With a comparatively small investment tied up in mills and railroads the forest can be constantly maintained in a productive condition and still a good interest percent on the original investment would be assured.”7
In the Upper Greenbrier Valley, the only companies with large enough land holdings to consider being able to recut their own land were St. Lawrence Boom and Manufacturing/Sherwood Companies, Greenbrier River Lumber Company, and West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company. There is no evidence that SLB&M/Sherwood ever made any effort in reforestation. GRLCo was mainly a land holding company for John McGraw and, other than the small amount cut in the early 1900s, sold its property to other lumber companies.
As noted before there are a few references to reforestation by WVP&P in early years. One of these is in the 1911 book, Forestry and Wood Industries. Under the Randolph County section, there is statement: “It is gratifying to note that at least one lumber company – the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company – is making extensive plantations of spruce trees on its cut-over lands near the head of Shavers Fork of Cheat river.” However, no evidence exists that the effort continued on a long-term basis. Mower Lumber did cut second growth timber on its former WVP&P land, but this was due to the efforts of Mother Nature and not planned reforestation.8
As early as the mid-1890s the logging had been going on for a sufficient length of time that the change it created in the landscape was becoming obvious. In early 1897 the Times made the following observation:
The disappearance of the logs and timbermen have made a great change in the appearance of things between Marlinton and Driscol. Our old acquaintances, the logs, will hardly be recognizable when they return in a year or two as furniture, goods-boxes and picture frames. It makes a great difference with logs, as well as boys, to go abroad, remain awhile and then come back to serve some useful or ornamental purpose.9
However, there were voices during the boom period expressing regret about the destruction of the area’s forests and concern about the future timber supply.
In 1898, even before the major logging had begun in the Greenbrier Valley, the West Virginia Board of Agriculture declared “Owing to the rapid destruction of our forests it is high time that something be done looking toward the preservation and protection of our timber land.”10
In a 1903 article on the operations of WVP&P on Cheat Mountain, Marlinton resident Norman Price commented, “It is a pity that the government did not set aside the forests about the headwaters of our rivers as a forest reserve.” However, he followed that sentence with “However the sacrifice of the trees has brought capital to be invested in the county, and therewith we must rest content.”11
On December 5, 1906, a traveling salesman of Sure Shot tobacco by the name of Ignatius Brennen sat on the end of a crosstie at Stony Bottom and wrote the following poem, presumably to his wife or girlfriend.
“In the Greenbrier Mountains”
With a pad on my knee, dear,
I’m penning to thee dear,
A line of myself emblamatic,
Through not sentimental,
Nor yet Continental,
But very much straight Democratic.
In the Greenbrier Mountains,
Where natural fountains,
Have slacked the wild deer of its thirsting,
I’m plying my trading,
And green haunts invading,
And quaffing from water to bursting.
When God made this Creation,
His intention, I’d reckon,
Was a home for the wild beasts and savage,
But the white man came onward,
Moonward and sunward,
Its fine virgin forests to ravage.
The forests depleted,
The rape is completed,
What nature held sacred has vanished,
The fawn and its mother,
And lo-the poor Indian, are banished.
The fir and the pine tree,
The hemlock and vine-tree,
Exchanges of sorrow are granting,
The fire-ravished hill-side,
The snake haunted rill-side,
Inanimate requiems are chanting.
The Greenbrier River,
Rolls on with a quiver,
Polluted with chemical lotion,
It hastes to connection,
In southwest direction,
Contented when lost in the ocean.
I turn back the pages,
And stop with the ages,
When nature was absolute master,
Then picture the white man,
(Lets hope he’s a right man),
Who wrough all this awful disaster.12
The author would love to know what brought about this outburst from Mr. Brennen (an early environmentalist?). Perhaps "chemical lotion" referred to some discharge from the tannery at Frank? It would seem something more likely to be written about twenty years later; in 1906 the stripping of the mountainsides of timber had only begun. In an article written after logging was underway on the North Fork of the Cherry River, W. C. Dodrill described the impact on that watershed and compared it with the adjoining Cranberry River. An object lesson in the changed conditions brought about by cutting away the timber may be seen along the divide between Cherry and Cranberry. On the Cherry side all the timber in some place has been cut down except the birch that is not of the best quality and a few, very few, other species that are worthless for lumber. Worthless and broken logs strew the ground. Tramway roads leading to the tops of the hills are found at short intervals. Each rain cuts these deeper and washes away the humus that is so essential to plant life. Nothing remains to remind one of the greatness of this beautiful old forest but the decaying stumps. By counting the ring growths of some of the black spruce stumps it was found that the tree had been nourished by the rains of more than 500 summers and had defied the storms of as many winters. In this region destruction and desolation is depicted everywhere. But what are the conditions existing on the other side of the divided where the woodman's axe has been withheld! The forest admirer may wander for days among the grand old trees that have stood for centuries. The ground is covered with a soft carpet of moss and decaying leaves. The water that falls in the form of rain or snow gradually sinks into the ground. What is not utilized by the trees seeks a lower level by a slow process. Dodrill made note of the difference in water runoff between the two areas, with the Cherry nearly always muddy and the Cranberry nearly always clear; greater floods in the former and fewer in the later; also, more water in the Cranberry than the Cherry than the time of drought. In noting that "Water supply is as much a question in the conservation of the forests as the timber supply. One in a measure depends upon the other." Dodrill was giving one of the arguments that lead to the creation of eastern national forests. He also noted the lesser number of birds found on the Cherry since lumber operations began. Within two years. timbering is to begin on the Cranberry, Dodrill wrote, "When this occurs one of the most beautiful and picturesque mountain streams in the Appalachian region will be robbed of its greatest glory . . . "13 A 1912 article in the Times with the title "Timber," it was noted that timber production was already more that thought possible and there was still a lot to be cut: The lumberman have already taken from this county threes times as much timber as the highest guess ever made at it prior to the building of the railroad. Three hundred million a year for the past ten years is a low estimate and three billion feet of lumber has been shipped from the mills and great areas of timber are not touched yet. About one third of the timber has been cut is one guess at the present situation, though that runs the amount of timber to fabulous figures. Just when the timber of this county will give out is a hazy and uncertain period, and the subject is not a welcome one.14 At the time the timbering that would strip the Upper Greenbrier Valley of its trees was getting underway, there were the beginnings of national concern about the massive cutting of the nation's forests. It was probably the removal of forests to provide land for agriculture that began the first concerns about whether the wanton destruction of forest land was a good thing. It was "agriculturalists who saw and appreciated what clearing could do to the land itself, to the soil, the stream flow, the microclimate, and the fish and animal life." As early as 1818 former President James Madison noted that all of the errors in the rural economy of the United States "none is so much to be regretted, perhaps because none is so difficult to repair, as the injurious and excessive destruction of timber and firewood."15 Madison was early in his concern about forest removal, but by the latter part of the Nineteenth Century there were a number of people expressing concern over the destruction of the forests, both for farms and lumber. One of the first given credit for bringing attention to the rapid deforestation and it impacts was George Perkins Marsh with his book Man and Nature, published in 1864. This is a remarkable book, considered by some to be the beginning of the modern environmental movement. One of the most influencial books of its time, second perhaps only to one published five year's earlier, Darwin's Origin of Species. The brief amount of space the author can give to Man and Nature in this writing cannot begin to ----- If one did not know the date it was published, the insight Marsh shows into environmental problems caused by our misuse of our resources reads like the date was 1964 rather than 100 years earlier. Marsh was born in 1901 in the Green Mountains of Vermont, at Woodstock, at the time when the mountains were truly green. He Spending five years in Turkey as -- and then the last 21 years of his life as ambassador to Italy gave Marsh a close look how George Marsh delivered an address before the Agricultural Society of Rutland County, Vermont, on - - - -- - in 1847. Marsh had worn many hats over his lifetime: lawyer, journalist, sheep farmer, mill owner, linguistics scholar, and diplomat. He designed the Washington Monument and co-founded the Smithsonian Institution. But it was in his role as United States senator that he addressed the Agricultural Society. He was the first person to publicly raise the issue of manmade climate change, and his speech helped spark the conservation movement. In his speech, Marsh said: "Man cannot at his pleasure command the rain and the sunshine, the wind and frost and snow, yet it is certain that climate itself has in many instances been gradually changed and ameliorated or deteriorated by human action. The draining of swamps and the clearing of forests perceptibly effect the evaporation from the earth [...] The same causes modify the electrical condition of the atmosphere and the power of the surface to reflect, absorb and radiate the rays of the sun, and consequently influence the distribution of light and heat, and the force and direction of the winds. Within narrow limits too, domestic fires and artificial structures create and diffuse increased warmth, to an extent that may effect vegetation." He was talking about concepts familiar to us now as the urban heat island effect and the greenhouse effect. As a result of his speech, Marsh went on to publish a book titled Man and Nature: or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action (1864). "[M]an is everywhere a disturbing agent," Marsh wrote. "Wherever he plants his foot, the harmonies of nature are turned to discords. The proportions and accommodations which insured the stability of existing arrangements are overthrown. Indigenous vegetable and animal species are extirpated, and supplanted by others of foreign origin, spontaneous production is forbidden or restricted, and the face of the earth is either laid bare or covered with a new and reluctant growth of vegetable forms, and with alien tribes of animal life. Marsh's book was used by those with a growing realization of the for government owned forest reserves to support their case. These efforts resulted in the first national forests being established in the 1890s. These actions followed the passage of the Forest Reserve Act in 1891 authorizing the president to set aside forest reserves from the public domain. At first these lands were managed by the Department of the Interior. Also in 1891, a Division of Forestry was created within the Department of Agriculture. In 1905 the Forestry Bureau was renamed the Forest Service and the forest reserves came under its jurisdiction. Clifford Pinchot was the first head of the USFS. Moving to the state level, in the early 1900s some actions were beginning for the protection of the state’s forest lands. In 1906, a pamphlet entitled The Needs of Forest Protection in West Virginia and Suggestions for a Forest Law was published by Hu Maxwell. He noted the value of the state’s forests for timber and influence on erosion and water flow, their destruction by fire and careless lumbering, and lack of action to prevent waste. However, the law proposed in the pamphlet was considered in the 1907 Legislature but failed to pass.16 Governor William Dawson appointed a three-member Conservation Commission in 1908, with Maxwell as one of the members. The Commission’s report, published in the fall of that year, devoted a major part to a discussion of the forest resources of the state and made recommendations for policies to protect these resources.17 also in 1908? West Virginia University established a Chair of Forestry as a department in its College of Agriculture and selected A. W. Nolan as the school’s first professor of forestry - Brooks, p 361-2 The West Virginia Forestry Association was organized at a meeting in January 1908 at WVU by representatives from 23 counties of the state Brooks p 362 PT, 3/12/1908 - meeting was on Jan. 24, reference in the article to the new department of forestry at WVU, Prof. A. W. Nolan, professor in charge of the new department, elected secretary of the WVFA - objects of the new group included: conservation of forest resources of the state; bring about better state laws for conserving and utilizing forests; take steps to reforesting denuded lands and exempting of woodlands from taxation; encourage tree planting; educate youth to appreciate the economic as well as esthetic value of trees In Forestry Quarterly, Vol. VI, p 329, from Southern Lumberman, 2/15/1908, W. Va. has
added a forestry school the state university
a state forestry association has been formed
State Board of Trade has appointed a committee to draft forest laws and police for the Legislature at its next session
In the early 1900s, just as the timbering boom in the Greenbrier Valley was getting up a full head of steam, The Pocahontas Times printed two articles which warned of the rate at which the nation was cutting its timber resource.
The first was in 1907 with the reprint of an article by an U. S. Department of Agriculture forester, Overton W. Price. Price began his article by noting that the lumber industry in the United States ranked fourth among the manufacturing industries of the country, producing products with an annual value of $566,090,000 and providing employment for considerably more than a million people. He noted rapid improvements in tools and machinery that had taken place in the industry in the previous fifty years. “In effective methods for the harvesting and manufacturing of lumber, the American lumberman has no superior, . . .”
However, Price quickly got to the main point of his article which was that the rapid development of the industry “has been fundamentally unsound in principle” and was heading for failure due to the rate at which it was depleting the resource upon which it depended. “The havoc which has been wrought in the forest of the United States has turned trees into money, but the balance on the wrong side of the sheet by rendering vast areas unproductive.” The sentence quoted in the last paragraph concluded “nor is he equaled in his disregard for the future of the forest which he cuts.” Price noted that although with the data then available “there is no way to foretell accurately the time necessary to exhaust this supply of merchantable timber,” he supports his argument about the dangers to the future of the lumber industry by noting that already were the supplies of timber of some species were failing and some almost exhausted. He gave as examples black walnut, white pine (“growing rapidly to be a rarity on the market”) and spruce for pulpwood. The list of species once considered valueless were being harvested more and being accepted as merchantable due to the exhaustion of more valuable kinds, Price wrote.
“It is natural that the lumberman should not turn eagerly from a system whose only aim is to secure the highest possible present profit from the forest to one which includes provisions for the production of a second crop from the lumbered area,” Price stated. However, he wrote that the time for “practical forestry has fully arrived.”18
The second article in the paper was excerpts from a 1909 report issued by the U. S. Forest Service, “The Timber Supply of the United States,” that claimed that the nation was cutting its forests faster than the annual growth. The report stated the nation was cutting its forests three times as fast as new timber was growing. “There is menace in the continuance of such conditions. While we might never reach absolute timber exhaustion, the unrestricted exploitation of our forests in the past has already had serious effects and it will have worse if it is allowed to continue unchecked.” White pine was used as one of the examples in the report. “White pine, for instance, which was once considered inexhausible, has fallen off seventy per cent in cut since 1890, and more than forty-five per cent since 1900.”
The report noted “The fact that timber has been cheap and abundant has made us careless of its production and reckless in its use.” It went on to give the example of Germany which was managing its forests so that wood growth exceeded timber production. “But to reach the necessary condition of equilibrium between timber production and consumption will take many years of vigorous effort by individual forest owners, by the States, and by the National Government. None of them can solve the problem alone; all must work together.”19
The office of Forest, Game, and Fish Warden was created by the Legislature in 1909, to replace the existing Fish and Game Warden position. J. A. Viquesney was appointed to the new position. The 1909 law also called for forest protection and research and provided for punishment of individuals and company owners who intentionally or carelessly set forest fires.20
In his 1911 book, Brooks surveyed what other states were doing to protect their forests and made a number of recommendations. The first was for the appointment of a state forester with duties in the areas of education, advice to private land owners, forest fire control, collection of data on forest and forest industries, and determining whether state-owned lands should be retained for forestry purposes. To encourage tree planting he recommended a law that would exempt from taxes for a period of years land that is planted to carefully prepared specifications or provide for a scale of rebates on such lands. Also recommended was for the state to agree to the acquisition of land by the federal government for a national forest.21
In an article in American Forestry magazine in 1913, Merritt Wilson, a West Virginia lumberman, wrote that unless the effort is made “to protect the growing timber and reforest the cutover lands of West Virginia that the lumber industry, one of the leading industries of our state, will soon be almost a thing of the past. The uncut area is getting smaller every year and it would seem that the only way to have a supply for the future is to grow it.” He noted that this state is “perhaps as well adapted to growing timber as any State east of the Mississippi river, unless it is Maine, and while it is well adapted to growing timber, much of the area is of little value for anything else, owing to the rough and mountainous character of the country.” Later in his article, Wilson gave his estimate of 12,000 square miles of the state “better adapted for growing timber than anything else.”
Wilson recommended the creation of a state Forestry Commission with the power to buy cut-over lands. Like Brooks, he also recommended using the tax laws to encourage the setting aside of land for reforestation.
He stressed that fire was the greatest threat to growing new forests. He noted that the cause of most forest fires were sparks from railroad and logging company locomotives and fires set by farmers to make more range for livestock, as well fires set by those who just want to see the woods burn. Lack of care by the railroad companies came under particular criticism from Wilson. “It is our opinion that companies and individuals carelessly letting fires get started should be made to pay damages for any timber and other property destroyed.”22
At the national level forested lands were being protected in the growing national forest system. However, all the first national forests had to be located in the west, as that is where the federal government owned land. The government had no authority to purchase private land for preserves. Following the establishment of the national forests in the west, efforts began to have legislation passed to allow the establishment of federal forest reserves in the Appalachians. Those in favor stressed the importance of forests in preventing flooding and siltation and regulation of stream flow. Following bad flooding in 1907 with millions of dollars of damages along the Monongahela and Ohio Rivers, the role of the cutover mountains in the headwaters in making the situation worse became obvious. Finally in 1911 Congress passed the Weeks Act which authorized the federal purchase of forests to protect the headwaters of navigable streams.
The first purchase within West Virginia for national forest purpose was in Tucker County in 1915. In 1920 the Monongahela purchase area was proclaimed as the Monongahela National Forest. The first property purchased for the MNF in the Greenbrier Valley was from the George Craig and Sons Lumber Company in April 1923. The tract contained 9,674 acres on — 23
The State of West Virginia was also taking additional action to protect the state’s forest lands. In 1921 the West Virginia Game and Fish Commission was created for the purpose of — need copy of law
The first tracts purchased by the Commission were in the Greenbrier Valley. In January 1924 A. D. Neill sold 10,847 acres to the Commission and a year later 4,546 acres were purchased from the Watoga Land Association. Today the former tract makes up most of Seneca State Forest and the other about half of Watoga State Park.24
As related in the articles on the individual lumber companies, most of their lands went into government ownership after being cut. In 2011 the Monongahela National Forest owns —- acres in Greenbrier and Pocahontas Counties and state parks and forests make up another —- acres of mostly former lumber company land.
The Fish and Game Commission also had responsibilities for a forest fire protection system.
Perhaps find somewhere in the fire discussion to fit in quotes from:
PT, 10/31/1901 – “This section has been scourged with fires several times within the past two years where forest fires were never known before, the woods being too dense and damp to burn, but with the opening up of farms and the cutting of the timber the woods are becoming dry.” from article on a fire on Laurel Creek (of Williams River)
PT, 11/5/1931 – Forest fires burned 64,110 acres in the county, January 1922 to January 1931 – estimated timber damage, $135,984
PT, 10/15/1914 Lookout stations in Pocahontas County were on Marlin Mountain at Mt. View Orchard, Briery Knob, and Bald Knob. “The country covered by the Marlin Mountain lookout is the Greenbrier Valley from the Alleghany top to the top of the high dividing ridge between the Greenbrier, and Cheat, Elk, Williams and Cranberry, as far north as Cass and as far south as Spice Run.”
Shawkey, p 286, F&G C installed 34 steel fire towers “within past five years” – “put nearly one-half of the timber area of the State, which is seriously subject to forest fires, under the observation of the rangers who are on duty constantly during the dry weather periods of the year.”
Despite all the human tragedy associated with the Great Depression of the 1930s, it reduced the demand for timber and thus reduced the amount of cutting, giving forests the opportunity to recover from the over cutting of the previous half-century. Marginal farm land was abandoned as the nation slid into depression and allowed to return to timberland.
The Depression also produced also one of the most important conservation efforts in the nation’s history, the Civilian Conservation Corps. Within the geographic area covered by this writing a total of fourteen CCC camps were established. Some had a brief existence while others were open for almost the entire period of the CCC program. All did work in the areas of reforestation, forest fire control, development of parks —- that are still obvious today.25
In 1933 the W. Va. Legislature replaced the Forest, Game and Fish Commission with the Conservation Commission (now the Department of Natural Resources) — allow state to work with the CCC – This law also established the position of state forester — need law
At West Virginia University, the Chair of Forestry became the School of Forestry in 1935 — check details
The good work of natural forces, with the human assistance related above, have restored the forests to the mountains and bottom lands of the Greenbrier Valley and at first glance they would look very familiar to any early settler who might by some way be able to return to the valley. Obviously, the vast acres of cleared farmland would be different than the few small clearings found by the original settlers, but the forested mountains would seem the same. As was the case 300 years ago, there is a progression of tree species as altitude changes, with the spruce on the highest ridges.
However, differences would be quickly noticed by our reincarnated pioneer. Today’s forest of second and third growth trees would look much different than the mostly mature forest found by the early settlers. The proportion of the various species would be considerably different now, with some species found by the original settlers non-existent or greatly reduced in extent.
Some of the differences in today’s forest from the forest that existed 300 years ago are the natural changes that occur when forests regrow from a disturbance. At one time it was believed that the climax forest in a given area was permanent; following a destruction of a section of forest, the eventual mature forest would be the same as was there before. This has found not to be the case since it takes up to hundreds of years for a forest to become mature and conditions of climate and other factors affecting forests are not the same over time. Other changes from the forest the first Europeans found are more directly the result of human activity.
One difference is the acreages of white pine, red spruce, and hemlock are much reduced from the forest the first settlers found. Whether this is a temporary condition as the forests recover from the clear-cut logging operations and grow their way towards maturity (assuming we would let them do this) or a permanent change in our forests, only time will tell.
As the lumbering operations were just getting underway, nature was making changes in the forests. In the documents in a — court case was the following statement by Daniel O’Connell:
Respondent further states that whether it is generally known or not, it is a fact, that Pine timber in that section within the last two years has been seriously prayed upon by a insect styled amongst lumbermen as “the bug”.
Mr. Brewer, as the respondent is informed and believes, becoming uneasy lest some of his pine timber should be lost to him on account of this insect decided to cut some of the timber of that character standing upon these lands during the present [1893-94] logging season.26
The writer of a news item in January 1895 noted “Everything has combined against lumbering the past few years. Bugs destroyed the timber, the rains ceased, and the price has fallen.”27
“The bug” referred by O’Connell is the southern pine beetle (Dendroctonus frontalis). This insect is one of the most destructive insects of pines in the southern United States
Forestry Quarterly, Vol IX, 1911, No. 3, September 1911 – a news note on the southern pine beetle states “It appears, however, that only at long intervals does it increase to such numbers as to cause widespread depredations, such as, for example, the great invasion of 1890 – 1893 in the Virginias.”
CWP, PT, 12/19/1935, refers to the southern pine beetle taking out the yellow pine east of the GR "more than forty years ago" "I remember being taken to a high mountain to look out over the Greenbrier peniplain (sic) and to see vast stretches of country brown as a sheep skin form the dead pines. This tree was superceded (sic) by the oaks, soft maple, hickory, and where the ground was too thin for better species of trees, chinquepin oak and bull pine." At least the southern pine beetle is a natural part of the North American ecosystem and the native trees have evolved ways to survive attacks by it. Unfortunately, such is not the case with imported dangers to the forests, where the native tree species have no natural protection. One of the first things our returnee would probably notice is something that is not present in today’s forest - the magnificent American chestnut tree. Although to the settler most species were just trees that were in the way of establishing farms, the chestnut was a tree of great usefulness, both for its wood and its nuts that provided food for both man and animal. The absence of this tree is due to a natural cause, but it is humans and not nature that must take the blame. In the early 1900s, as the timbering in the valley was at its most intensive, the chestnut was under attack from a foreigner invader. Chinese chestnut trees imported from Asia for nursery stock brought with them a fungus that the native chestnut trees had no resistance to. In 1904 it was noticed that trees in the New York Zoological Park were dying. The spores of the fungus were carried by wind, bird, insects, and people throughout the tree’s range in the Appalachian Mountains. By 1910 American chestnut trees were dying across Pennsylvania and the blight was moving south at a rate of 50 miles a year. All efforts to stop the blight failed and by the 1950s the tree was virtually gone from Appalachian forests. There is some hope for the future of the American chestnut as a feature of the Appalachian forests. Even today chestnuts will grow from roots of long dead trees. However, before long the youthful chestnut succumb to the blight. But research efforts have been underway for a number of years to cross-breed with the blight resistant Chinese chestnut and eventually produce an American chestnut that is also blight resistant. Chestnut blight is itself merely the most dramatic symptom of epidemic in Appalachian forest, one that came in with the twentieth century but has hardly run its course. The globalization of the world’s economy is being accompanied by a less beneficial globalization of its ecology. International trade has opened the doors to some very undesirable immigrants. Brought in purposely for one reason or another, or unintentionally on lumber, furniture, exotic plants, and sundry other imports, more than a dozen introduced pests and diseases now assail Appalachia.28 Another example of an “on purpose” human decision that has resulted in a curse to our forests was bringing the gypsy moth, a native of Europe, to this country in -1869 -- 1868 -- in hopes of using it for silk production. Some escaped into the wild and trees began to die due to the defoliation caused by the gypsy moth caterpillars. From the initial defoliation in Massachusetts in 1889, the moth has moved its way south and west, reaching West Virginia in ----. Oak trees, valuable to both wildlife and timberman, have been particularly impacted by the gypsy moth. The moths are also partial to beech, pines, and hemlock. One author recently wrote that “if gypsy moths continue their recurrent pattern of eating all the oaks they can find, other species of trees will take over the dominance of the forests. That will mean fewer acorns, which now serve as the main substitute for chestnuts as wildlife food. The number of wild animals that Appalachian forests can support will take another sharp dip.”29 Fortunately, there is some good news with regard to this pest. A fungus from Japan has been found that attacks only the gypsy moth and has reduced the amount of acres defoliated by --- A pioneer returning to the valley a few years from now will probably find another of tree species common in his time, the hemlock, to be missing. Hemlock has made up a smaller percentage of second growth forest and now a tiny, less than 1/16th of an inch, Asian import, the hemlock woolly adelgid, is threatening to eliminate these magnificent trees from the forests of the eastern United States. It was first found found in 1951 in Richmond, Virginia, in a hemlock tree near Maymont Park. The park was originally a private estate and it is believed the insect may have come to this country with the establishment on the estate of a Japanese garden in 1911.30 There was no particular concern about this pest until the late 1980s when was found in a stand of hemlocks outside of the city. About the same time hemlocks were found to be invested with the woolly adelgid in Shenandoah National Park in Northern Virginia. By the mid-1990s most of hemlocks in the park were dead. The pest has been working its way north, west and south and is now found in sixteen states, covering about half the range of the two hemlock species in the east. In West Virginia, the insect has invaded almost half of the state’s counties. After being infected, a hemlock will die in about three years. There is a chemical treatment but it is expensive to apply and and repeated treatments are needed. Another disease caused by an import is white pine blister rust, caused by a fungus that came to --- The spruce budworm, coming from ----, attacks spruce, firs, tamarack, hemlocks, and pines. In recent decades even more horrors have come to the forests. These include: * Dogwood Anthracnose * Balsam Woolly Aphid * Adelges piceae * Dutch Bark Disease * Butternut Canker * Oak Wilt * Sudden Oak Death, Asian longhorn beetle, emerald ash borer
Sullivan, Rose, New Threats to Mountain State Trees Emerge, WV Wildlife Diversity News, WV DNR, Vol. 19 , No. 4, Winter 2003
Invasive plants impacting forests include: * autumn olive * multiflora rose * tree of heaven * barberry * crown vetch * garlic mustard * Asiatic bittersweet The fewer acres of white pine, spruce, and hemlock, mentioned before, would be a direct result of the lumbering operations. The white pine, the dominate species at lower elevations to the east of the river, now exists only in scattered stands. In its place today are ------- The fires that followed the logging were severe enough in some areas to burn away, not only the debris left behind by the loggers, but the soil itself, leaving only bedrock. Recovery of these areas is, of course, taking longer -- Air pollution has placed a strain on the acid rain - soil nutrient depletion Another environmental factor that is determining the future of our forests is climate change caused by global warming. While the argument goes on about about much of this is to be blamed on man’s activities (among politicians, not reputable scientists), the forests of the Greenbrier Valley, as elsewhere, are slowly changing under its impact. Dan Lewerenz, Associated Press, article in Charleston Gazette, 6/13/2003, "Oaks decline, maples move in", on decline of oaks, increase in maples. Reasons given are (1) fire suppression. Maples sensitive to fire and few used to survive ground fires - oaks use fire as part of natural regeneration. (2) decrease in soil quantity and quality. Soils washed away following clear cutting of 100 years ago and soil polluted by acid rain and stripped of important elements - maples more tolerant of acidic soils . (3) deer population increase. Deer would rather eat oak than maple. Another difference in today's forests as compared to what the original settlers found is in the areas where spruce timber is found. Although it hard to distinguish much of the trees today are Norway spruce rather than the native red spruce. This is another change based on decisions made by those concerned with the future of forests. Starting with Rothkugel, Norway spruce has been used for replanting areas where red spruce was the native tree -
need to find out how much Norway spruce seeding was done and how much of today’s spruce is red and how much Norway – need to confirm that Norway does a better job of surviving the conditions found in cut-over and often burned-over forest land as claimed in Carvel, “Arboreal Mysteries Unraveled”
But I should not end on a pessimistic note. Change is part of the natural scheme and will continue as long as this planet exists. How much the activities of humans have sped up and otherwise impacted this change is a matter of debate among scientists and politicians (more among the latter). Hopefully, before too many more years pass the so-called “intelligent” species will move from decision making based mostly on self-interest and short-term goals to more thoughts for the future of our fragile earth and the best-interest of our children and grandchildren. As for our forests, words written in a February 1, 1905, letter from Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson to Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot, are as true today as when written, “In the administration of the forest reserves it must be clearly borne in mind that all land is to be devoted to its most productive use of the permanent good of the whole people, and not for the temporary benefit of individuals or companies . . . “. . . where conflicting interests must be reconciled the question will always be decided from he standpoint of the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run.”31 Although, as related in the previous pages, the timbermen of the late 1800s and early 1900s did a very tho--- job of removing the trees from the Greenbrier Valley, virgin timber does exist in a few areas. The easiest to access is the Gaudineer Knob ----- . Here --- acres of timber were saved from the lumberman's axe and saw by ------ Baun refers to "A virgin forest area some three miles east of Linwood at the southern end of Back Allegheny Mountain (where it joins the southern end of Cheat Mountain) ...." p 82 Baun has photo on p 80 of virgin white oak near Anthonys Creek - Virginians for Wilderness website, http://asecular.com/forests/anthonycr.htm, Old Growth/Anthony Creek, locates what it thinks is on the east-facing slope just west of the North Fork
A. Price, PT, 12/28/1916, “A forest is a long time in growing, but they do grow.”
PT, 4/7/1927 article on the Upper Tract. “The Upper Tract has in it now the large and important town of Durbin, and one of the big tanneries of the country, but for the most part the land is regaining its wilderness estate, and soon it will be an ideal retreat for the lovers of nature, who will find all the delights of the forest and stream. Time will heal the hurts made by the timber operations, and the experts of the National Forest aid materially in its rejuvenation.”

Although this book is not intended to be a social history of this part of West Virginia, the author feels it would be irresponsible not to comment on some of the recent writings and books about the impact on the development of the natural resources of West Virginia has had on the people of the state and its environment. The usual theme of these books and articles is that it was a disaster, leaving behind an exploited and dispirited people, unable to cope with modern life and a ruined landscape. This analysis has been extended to all regions of the state and all resources, including the timbering in the Greenbrier Valley. Some of these writings, quite frankly, contain historical mistakes about the Greenbrier Valley which show a lack of historical research (or an interpretation of research to meet pre-conceived conclusions). Much of what the writers have said about the impact of development and the actions of developers (past and present) is true, but much is also total imagination. For the coal producing regions of West Virginia, much of what is written about the impacts of development on the land and people is, unfortunately true. However, the Greenbrier Valley and other parts of eastern West Virginia --- There is no argument that the timbering that took place from the late 1800s to about 1930 had major environmental impacts. This has been a major theme in this chapter. It is in discussing the impact on the people and society of the valley that recent authors have gone greatly off base. What is forgotten by these writers is that the valley had a long-established, viable economic base and settled population, based on agriculture, prior to the timber development, unlike much of the coal producing regions of the state, where the coal development was the first and virtually only aspect of the economy. The people of the Greenbrier Valley were not the stereotype “hillbillies” of books, movies, and recent social studies of the Appalachian Mountain states, but as educated -- as any -- In Pocahontas County, for example, three, not one, but three, preparatory schools for the University of Virginia were established in the 1840s. As related in Chapter I, by the time of the Civil War, a series of turnpikes connected the valley with the rest of Virginia. Lewisburg was an educational center The land purchased by the lumber companies was of little value to the agricultural based economy of the Greenbrier Valley. (References to the cost of removing timber to convert land to farm use were made in Chapter I.) The companies did not purchase land being used for agriculture (why would they?), except for sites along the railroad needed for the mills and mill towns. Generally most of these sites went back to agricultural use after the mills closed and remain so today. Did the local landowners get as much as they should have for their timber and timber land? Perhaps not, but this is a question that cannot be answered with certainty now. Getting any income from land that was useless for your main economic activity can only be considered a positive. (Considering the number of lumber company bankruptcies, some folks may have gotten too much for their timber.) The major tracts of land acquired for the lumber companies were not stolen from a group of illiterate farmers. Most of the timber acreage had been in the hands of speculators from “day one” and passed from one group to another over the years. The needs of the lumber companies for food provided a new market for the farmers in the valley and the C&O provided easier access to distant markets. The jobs and business opportunities provided by the timbering operations allowed at least one or two generations of their sons and daughters to remain at home rather than having to leave the area to find employment. As has been recounted before, the timber cutting had negative impacts on the land and forests and there were certainly social impacts from the influx of people, some from other countries, that came with the railroad and timber development. But in terms of history this timber “boom” period was too short, only about sixty years, to radically change either the long-established economic or social situation in the Greenbrier Valley. (The major timbering was completed in less than thirty years.) As for the coming of people from other enthic groups to the valley during the timbering era, in the author’s opinion, at least, it is a shame that some of these new residents were not able to remain in order to provide a more diverse population today. Once the timber was cut, the departing timber companies and their employees did not leave behind an improvished population with no other way of making a living. Obviously, the economic boost provided by the mills was missed by many, but the agricultural base remained, as well as the railroad connecting the valley to the nation and various other improvements that had been put in place during the timbering period. Remaining from the boom timbering period were the two tanneries, the continuing lumber operation at Cass, and other smaller lumbering operations, which --- As the nation went into the Great Depression it may have been just as well for the people of the valley that the timber boom was over; the economic conditions of the 1930s would have brought it to a sudden halt. As it was the boom peaked before 1920 and the valley had been adjusting to The fact that today agriculture can support only a small part of the Greenbrier Valley‘s population has no connection with the timber development. Many other economic factors, both national and international, have brought about the major decrease in the number of people employed in farming. For this part of the state, it has even been suggested that the change of ownership from the lumber companies to the federal government for the Monongahela National Forest is a continuation of some type of evil land ownership by outside interests. This was certainly not the opinion of those alive at the time the cut-over land was being purchased by the federal government. Today, even though memories of the conditions of our forest land following timbering are almost gone, most people will probably agree that the existence of the Monongahela National Forest is a positive for the valley. Though it is true that the federal land might be considered to be owned “from afar,” the owners also include all of us who live in the valley. The land in the MNF is ours and open to all, a considerable difference from the company-owned land in much of the state, with the all too common “no trespassing” signs. Accusations that lumber companies were able to avoid the liability for the environmental impact they had on the land and then make a final profit by selling their cut-over land to the federal government is using a present-day attitude about corporate responsibility that generally did not exist at the time. Besides, we are far from prefect today in making corporations take responsibility for their
The Greenbrier Wilderness
E. D. Coontz
The miles of torn and wasted wood,
Where once a giant forest stood;
—– so dense with laurel and spruce
That the sun could seldom find excuse
To pierce these depths of woodland shade,
—- this wondrous woodland glad
Among deep-rooted trees of earth,
And Greenbrier’s soul was given birth
The waters pure and crystal clear,
With springs that burst from every where
But, there came that day of sacrifice
For this nature’s wooded paradise:
When man had laid his strings of steel,
That power the woodland soon must feel,
With ax and saw men followed fast,
To strip these hills of forests vast;
The few that failed to feel the stroke,
Beneath the hand of fire were broke,
The ghosts of trees stand here and there,
–rch by flame with branches bare.
What means that pile of rusted steel
That brush and bramble half conceal
What is that twisted coil of wire,
Half hidden in the boggish mire?
That crumbling pile of brick you see
Shows where the great boilers used to be
The pond – now home for croaking frogs,
Once covered by a thousand logs,
That grassy plot by yonder wood,
Shows where the horse’s stable stood
And just another ghastly scene,
That broken bridge ‘cross yonder stream
That tangled trail up yonder glen,
Was once the path of horse and men
Out here among the mossy stones,
We view a pile of bleaching bones,
A broken horse perhaps was shot,
His carcass left out here to rot,
Here two stones that mark a tomb,
Where some lone woods man met his doom,
A lonely grave o’er grown with grass
Is seen by few who daily pass.
Beneath the old abandoned grade,
The wood chuck burrows unafraid,
For nothing now disturbs his rest,
His domain here by far the best.
Out from a nook of sheltered shade,
The ruffed grouse struts all unafraid,
An eagle soars on dizzy heights
And owl voices stir upon the nights,
Ravens are talking on the hills,
Their voices mingling with the rills.
The mountains wrapped in slumber deep,
Silent rocks you soul to sleep,
Out here beneath the silent stars,
Now still – no hum of motor cars
What rest tired hearts so seldom meet,
No tramp of men on brick-paved street,
No rumbling of a noisy train,
To shake your nerves or wrack your brain.
The years have sped, the mills have died,
But they left their scars on every side,
A waste of briars and tangled vine,
Where once had stood the stately pine
Around yon green and grassy clump
The remnant of the rotting stump
Where nature once held regal sways
The herds man’s sheep come now to graze.
The camp with all its life is gone,
Some rotting boards are left alone,
Where voices rang now all is still,
For silent stands the noisy mill.
The woods-man’s voices all are dead,
Along the path where sportsmen tread.32ime it took; startinLess than a human lifetime was all the time it took; starting in the early 1870s and completed by the early 1930s. In that period the pre-European settlement timber in the Upper Greenbrier Valley had been cut, almost down to every single tree. By the late 1800s and early 1900s the technology available to the lumber industry had made it very efficient in the removal of timber on a large scale. What was true in the Greenbrier Valley was also true in most of eastern West Virginia and much of the rest of the state during the same period. The state’s magnificent forests had been turned into boards, flooring, lath, pulpwood, tan bark, barrel staves, ship pins, shingles, utility poles, and forest floor litter well before nascent efforts to protect some of the nation’s pre-European settlement forests and introduce sustainable forestry practices had a foothold in this state.
The attitude of many towards the forest was that the timber supply was endless. In his 1911 book, Forestry and Wood Industries, published by the West Virginia Geological Survey, Alonzo B. Brooks summarized this feeling:
The need of preserving the forests of this country was not apparent to many persons 200 years ago. The pioneer settlers of our Eastern states built their homes in what they considered an almost boundless wilderness. Trees were regarded by them, naturally, as obstacles in the way of improvement, for they were removed with great labor and could not be sold or given away. The openings first made were insignificant in comparison with the vast woodlands which surrounded them. But this was not long the case. As the population increased and settlements were extended from year to year, the small cornfields were widened into extensive farms; fires began to take their toll from the forests in the region of settlements; and the occupation of lumbering began. In the course of time the various agents of destruction, working together, produced a serious condition in the forests. The condition was not readily observed because the people had not been trained to expect trouble from such a source. The conception that the forest was boundless and inexhaustible had been transmitted from one generation to another until it had become fixed in the minds of the inhabitants as a firm belief. With this inherited handicap, therefore, the present generations were slow in believing even what reason taught them was true.1
Brooks noted that West Virginia originally was almost unbroken forest covering more than 15.5 million acres and containing 150 billion feet of timber. At the time he was writing 60% of the state was still timbered. However, in 1910 there were 83 large band and about 900 portable sawmills operating with the capacity to cut all the timber in the state in the next 16 years. He predicted that by 1940 none of the band mills would be in operation due to the depletion of the timber.2
The lumber companies working in the Greenbrier Valley certainly seem to have operated under this belief of unlimited timber supply. Most came to West Virginia following the depletion of timber in other states and probably assumed they could move on to other areas after this state was cut over.
Arthur H. Winchester, who was an investor in West Virginia timber lands in the late 1800s (including the Cheat Mountain land that he purchased for Dewing and Sons that was later purchased by the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company), is reported to have stated in a hearing before the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representative in 1897 “We [West Virginia] don’t need scientific forestry down our way. The growth of our timber is so rapid that the forests restore themselves without artificial help as fast as they can be cut away.” What Winchester was claiming the state’s timber industry did need was the imposition of tariffs to protect it from cheaper lumber being imported from Canada.3
At least partially due to this attitude, during the period when the pre-settlement timber was being stripped from the mountainsides and valley land in the Upper Greenbrier Valley very little was done in the way of reforestation. The brief employment by the George Craig and Sons Lumber Company of a trained forester was related in the article on that company (see Winterburn, Chapter X). There are a few references to the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company making an effort to replant the area the company logged. One was in a news article at the time of absorption of the West Virginia Spruce Lumber Company into the parent company in 1909. The article included:
Another interesting feature of their operations has been the adoption of scientific forestry methods in their lumbering, which, according to their experience to date, assures them practically an inexhaustible supply of timber on their present holdings
Only the right timber has been logged, they are constantly replanting, and today they have 25,000 acres which has been logged over which is coming, both from seedling and young timber growth, to a condition which will permit of most profitable logging thereon again before they have anywhere near logged their entire premises.4
An article on the lumber operation at Cass in the American Lumberman in 1911 made a brief reference to replanting by W. Va. Pulp and Paper. Following comments on the company’s efforts to control fire, the article continues: “Only about 1500 of its 25,000 acres of the company’s cut over lands have been burned over and these are being carefully replanted, as are other areas where the young timber left is not sufficient to provide a heavy future growth. In replanting, the men pick up the small spruce which are to be found in abundance among the older timber and these are put into ground within twenty-four hours.”5
WVP&P wrote to Brooks in 1910 and reported the company had planted 25,000 spruce trees in 1909, with about 80% growing a year later, and 170,000 spruce and 2000 yellow poplars in 1910. In the letter the company expressed it great interest “in the reproduction of forests on our property and it is our present intention to do everything in our power in the future to save and propagate the timber.” The letter stated that timber under about ten inches was being left. “We confidently believe that if the fire can be kept out of the old slashing that our property will reproduce itself rapidly and that by the time we have lumbered over it, it will be possible to go over it again, and while of course we will not be able to secure the quantity of large lumber, we can make the crops perpetual for pulp.”6
However, other than these limited efforts – and WVP&P seems to have discontinued its reforestation program after a few years – the companies cutting the Greenbrier Valley timber did it with no particular thought to the future.
But, as always in judging the actions of those who came before us, we must be careful not to use the standards and knowledge of our time. Particularly, since in many parts of the world, including parts of environmentally “enlightened” North America, the forests are continued to be attacked as if they go on forever. Our ancestors could only see unending forests as they climbed to the top of each mountain – today we can see the entire earth virtually at once from space. Yet, we are generally behaving as a lumber company of 1900 without the excuse of limited vision. Our approach today to other natural resources, particularly oil and natural gas, is not much different. As the 21st Century gets underway we still seem to operate mainly on the belief that these resources are infinite.
The generation that is using “mountain top removal” for the production of coal is not exactly in a position to criticize those who clear cut the timber of our West Virginia mountains. The trees have regrown; the mountains will not. True, acres of ugliness did follow the timbering. Clear cut sites are not pretty and fires followed the logging in many areas, burning the left behind debris and in places burning off the eons-old accumulation of humus down to bare rock. But trees have regrown and even the areas of the worse fires are slowly healing. The ugliness and waste of mountain top removal will remain with us and the generations to come, forever.
Attitude was not the only reason for the “clear cut” timbering that was done; economics played a major role. Even lumbermen who may have had the foresight to realize that the amount of timber was finite were confined by the economics of the business. The average company held a relatively small amount of timber and reaching it required for most the major cost of building a railroad. There was no way a company could regain its expenses and pay its debts if it built a railroad some distance into a section of its holdings, take only part of the timber, and then remove the track, planning to relay it back a number of years later to take some additional timber. The only way to make money on the investment of money for timber, equipment, and railroad construction was to take it all. Only a few companies owned large enough amounts of timber land to be able to look forward to a return to the cut-over portion of their holdings.
In his 1908 article on forest land management in West Virginia, Max Rothkugel recommended the use of portable mills, 15,000 to 20,000 feet per day capacity, rather than large capacity mills, of up to 100,000 capacity. “Big mills with their large investment in equipment and in rails must disappear before management of the present stands can be practiced. With a comparatively small investment tied up in mills and railroads the forest can be constantly maintained in a productive condition and still a good interest percent on the original investment would be assured.”7
In the Upper Greenbrier Valley, the only companies with large enough land holdings to consider being able to recut their own land were St. Lawrence Boom and Manufacturing/Sherwood Companies, Greenbrier River Lumber Company, and West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company. There is no evidence that SLB&M/Sherwood ever made any effort in reforestation. GRLCo was mainly a land holding company for John McGraw and, other than the small amount cut in the early 1900s, sold its property to other lumber companies.
As noted before there are a few references to reforestation by WVP&P in early years. One of these is in the 1911 book, Forestry and Wood Industries. Under the Randolph County section, there is statement: “It is gratifying to note that at least one lumber company – the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company – is making extensive plantations of spruce trees on its cut-over lands near the head of Shavers Fork of Cheat river.” However, no evidence exists that the effort continued on a long-term basis. Mower Lumber did cut second growth timber on its former WVP&P land, but this was due to the efforts of Mother Nature and not planned reforestation.8
As early as the mid-1890s the logging had been going on for a sufficient length of time that the change it created in the landscape was becoming obvious. In early 1897 the Times made the following observation:
The disappearance of the logs and timbermen have made a great change in the appearance of things between Marlinton and Driscol. Our old acquaintances, the logs, will hardly be recognizable when they return in a year or two as furniture, goods-boxes and picture frames. It makes a great difference with logs, as well as boys, to go abroad, remain awhile and then come back to serve some useful or ornamental purpose.9
However, there were voices during the boom period expressing regret about the destruction of the area’s forests and concern about the future timber supply.
In 1898, even before the major logging had begun in the Greenbrier Valley, the West Virginia Board of Agriculture declared “Owing to the rapid destruction of our forests it is high time that something be done looking toward the preservation and protection of our timber land.”10
In a 1903 article on the operations of WVP&P on Cheat Mountain, Marlinton resident Norman Price commented, “It is a pity that the government did not set aside the forests about the headwaters of our rivers as a forest reserve.” However, he followed that sentence with “However the sacrifice of the trees has brought capital to be invested in the county, and therewith we must rest content.”11
On December 5, 1906, a traveling salesman of Sure Shot tobacco by the name of Ignatius Brennen sat on the end of a crosstie at Stony Bottom and wrote the following poem, presumably to his wife or girlfriend.
“In the Greenbrier Mountains”
With a pad on my knee, dear,
I’m penning to thee dear,
A line of myself emblamatic,
Through not sentimental,
Nor yet Continental,
But very much straight Democratic.
In the Greenbrier Mountains,
Where natural fountains,
Have slacked the wild deer of its thirsting,
I’m plying my trading,
And green haunts invading,
And quaffing from water to bursting.
When God made this Creation,
His intention, I’d reckon,
Was a home for the wild beasts and savage,
But the white man came onward,
Moonward and sunward,
Its fine virgin forests to ravage.
The forests depleted,
The rape is completed,
What nature held sacred has vanished,
The fawn and its mother,
And lo-the poor Indian, are banished.
The fir and the pine tree,
The hemlock and vine-tree,
Exchanges of sorrow are granting,
The fire-ravished hill-side,
The snake haunted rill-side,
Inanimate requiems are chanting.
The Greenbrier River,
Rolls on with a quiver,
Polluted with chemical lotion,
It hastes to connection,
In southwest direction,
Contented when lost in the ocean.
I turn back the pages,
And stop with the ages,
When nature was absolute master,
Then picture the white man,
(Lets hope he’s a right man),
Who wrough all this awful disaster.12
The author would love to know what brought about this outburst from Mr. Brennen (an early environmentalist?). Perhaps "chemical lotion" referred to some discharge from the tannery at Frank? It would seem something more likely to be written about twenty years later; in 1906 the stripping of the mountainsides of timber had only begun. In an article written after logging was underway on the North Fork of the Cherry River, W. C. Dodrill described the impact on that watershed and compared it with the adjoining Cranberry River. An object lesson in the changed conditions brought about by cutting away the timber may be seen along the divide between Cherry and Cranberry. On the Cherry side all the timber in some place has been cut down except the birch that is not of the best quality and a few, very few, other species that are worthless for lumber. Worthless and broken logs strew the ground. Tramway roads leading to the tops of the hills are found at short intervals. Each rain cuts these deeper and washes away the humus that is so essential to plant life. Nothing remains to remind one of the greatness of this beautiful old forest but the decaying stumps. By counting the ring growths of some of the black spruce stumps it was found that the tree had been nourished by the rains of more than 500 summers and had defied the storms of as many winters. In this region destruction and desolation is depicted everywhere. But what are the conditions existing on the other side of the divided where the woodman's axe has been withheld! The forest admirer may wander for days among the grand old trees that have stood for centuries. The ground is covered with a soft carpet of moss and decaying leaves. The water that falls in the form of rain or snow gradually sinks into the ground. What is not utilized by the trees seeks a lower level by a slow process. Dodrill made note of the difference in water runoff between the two areas, with the Cherry nearly always muddy and the Cranberry nearly always clear; greater floods in the former and fewer in the later; also, more water in the Cranberry than the Cherry than the time of drought. In noting that "Water supply is as much a question in the conservation of the forests as the timber supply. One in a measure depends upon the other." Dodrill was giving one of the arguments that lead to the creation of eastern national forests. He also noted the lesser number of birds found on the Cherry since lumber operations began. Within two years. timbering is to begin on the Cranberry, Dodrill wrote, "When this occurs one of the most beautiful and picturesque mountain streams in the Appalachian region will be robbed of its greatest glory . . . "13 A 1912 article in the Times with the title "Timber," it was noted that timber production was already more that thought possible and there was still a lot to be cut: The lumberman have already taken from this county threes times as much timber as the highest guess ever made at it prior to the building of the railroad. Three hundred million a year for the past ten years is a low estimate and three billion feet of lumber has been shipped from the mills and great areas of timber are not touched yet. About one third of the timber has been cut is one guess at the present situation, though that runs the amount of timber to fabulous figures. Just when the timber of this county will give out is a hazy and uncertain period, and the subject is not a welcome one.14 At the time the timbering that would strip the Upper Greenbrier Valley of its trees was getting underway, there were the beginnings of national concern about the massive cutting of the nation's forests. It was probably the removal of forests to provide land for agriculture that began the first concerns about whether the wanton destruction of forest land was a good thing. It was "agriculturalists who saw and appreciated what clearing could do to the land itself, to the soil, the stream flow, the microclimate, and the fish and animal life." As early as 1818 former President James Madison noted that all of the errors in the rural economy of the United States "none is so much to be regretted, perhaps because none is so difficult to repair, as the injurious and excessive destruction of timber and firewood."15 Madison was early in his concern about forest removal, but by the latter part of the Nineteenth Century there were a number of people expressing concern over the destruction of the forests, both for farms and lumber. One of the first given credit for bringing attention to the rapid deforestation and it impacts was George Perkins Marsh with his book Man and Nature, published in 1864. This is a remarkable book, considered by some to be the beginning of the modern environmental movement. One of the most influencial books of its time, second perhaps only to one published five year's earlier, Darwin's Origin of Species. The brief amount of space the author can give to Man and Nature in this writing cannot begin to ----- If one did not know the date it was published, the insight Marsh shows into environmental problems caused by our misuse of our resources reads like the date was 1964 rather than 100 years earlier. Marsh was born in 1901 in the Green Mountains of Vermont, at Woodstock, at the time when the mountains were truly green. He Spending five years in Turkey as -- and then the last 21 years of his life as ambassador to Italy gave Marsh a close look how George Marsh delivered an address before the Agricultural Society of Rutland County, Vermont, on - - - -- - in 1847. Marsh had worn many hats over his lifetime: lawyer, journalist, sheep farmer, mill owner, linguistics scholar, and diplomat. He designed the Washington Monument and co-founded the Smithsonian Institution. But it was in his role as United States senator that he addressed the Agricultural Society. He was the first person to publicly raise the issue of manmade climate change, and his speech helped spark the conservation movement. In his speech, Marsh said: "Man cannot at his pleasure command the rain and the sunshine, the wind and frost and snow, yet it is certain that climate itself has in many instances been gradually changed and ameliorated or deteriorated by human action. The draining of swamps and the clearing of forests perceptibly effect the evaporation from the earth [...] The same causes modify the electrical condition of the atmosphere and the power of the surface to reflect, absorb and radiate the rays of the sun, and consequently influence the distribution of light and heat, and the force and direction of the winds. Within narrow limits too, domestic fires and artificial structures create and diffuse increased warmth, to an extent that may effect vegetation." He was talking about concepts familiar to us now as the urban heat island effect and the greenhouse effect. As a result of his speech, Marsh went on to publish a book titled Man and Nature: or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action (1864). "[M]an is everywhere a disturbing agent," Marsh wrote. "Wherever he plants his foot, the harmonies of nature are turned to discords. The proportions and accommodations which insured the stability of existing arrangements are overthrown. Indigenous vegetable and animal species are extirpated, and supplanted by others of foreign origin, spontaneous production is forbidden or restricted, and the face of the earth is either laid bare or covered with a new and reluctant growth of vegetable forms, and with alien tribes of animal life. Marsh's book was used by those with a growing realization of the for government owned forest reserves to support their case. These efforts resulted in the first national forests being established in the 1890s. These actions followed the passage of the Forest Reserve Act in 1891 authorizing the president to set aside forest reserves from the public domain. At first these lands were managed by the Department of the Interior. Also in 1891, a Division of Forestry was created within the Department of Agriculture. In 1905 the Forestry Bureau was renamed the Forest Service and the forest reserves came under its jurisdiction. Clifford Pinchot was the first head of the USFS. Moving to the state level, in the early 1900s some actions were beginning for the protection of the state’s forest lands. In 1906, a pamphlet entitled The Needs of Forest Protection in West Virginia and Suggestions for a Forest Law was published by Hu Maxwell. He noted the value of the state’s forests for timber and influence on erosion and water flow, their destruction by fire and careless lumbering, and lack of action to prevent waste. However, the law proposed in the pamphlet was considered in the 1907 Legislature but failed to pass.16 Governor William Dawson appointed a three-member Conservation Commission in 1908, with Maxwell as one of the members. The Commission’s report, published in the fall of that year, devoted a major part to a discussion of the forest resources of the state and made recommendations for policies to protect these resources.17 also in 1908? West Virginia University established a Chair of Forestry as a department in its College of Agriculture and selected A. W. Nolan as the school’s first professor of forestry - Brooks, p 361-2 The West Virginia Forestry Association was organized at a meeting in January 1908 at WVU by representatives from 23 counties of the state Brooks p 362 PT, 3/12/1908 - meeting was on Jan. 24, reference in the article to the new department of forestry at WVU, Prof. A. W. Nolan, professor in charge of the new department, elected secretary of the WVFA - objects of the new group included: conservation of forest resources of the state; bring about better state laws for conserving and utilizing forests; take steps to reforesting denuded lands and exempting of woodlands from taxation; encourage tree planting; educate youth to appreciate the economic as well as esthetic value of trees In Forestry Quarterly, Vol. VI, p 329, from Southern Lumberman, 2/15/1908, W. Va. has
added a forestry school the state university
a state forestry association has been formed
State Board of Trade has appointed a committee to draft forest laws and police for the Legislature at its next session
In the early 1900s, just as the timbering boom in the Greenbrier Valley was getting up a full head of steam, The Pocahontas Times printed two articles which warned of the rate at which the nation was cutting its timber resource.
The first was in 1907 with the reprint of an article by an U. S. Department of Agriculture forester, Overton W. Price. Price began his article by noting that the lumber industry in the United States ranked fourth among the manufacturing industries of the country, producing products with an annual value of $566,090,000 and providing employment for considerably more than a million people. He noted rapid improvements in tools and machinery that had taken place in the industry in the previous fifty years. “In effective methods for the harvesting and manufacturing of lumber, the American lumberman has no superior, . . .”
However, Price quickly got to the main point of his article which was that the rapid development of the industry “has been fundamentally unsound in principle” and was heading for failure due to the rate at which it was depleting the resource upon which it depended. “The havoc which has been wrought in the forest of the United States has turned trees into money, but the balance on the wrong side of the sheet by rendering vast areas unproductive.” The sentence quoted in the last paragraph concluded “nor is he equaled in his disregard for the future of the forest which he cuts.” Price noted that although with the data then available “there is no way to foretell accurately the time necessary to exhaust this supply of merchantable timber,” he supports his argument about the dangers to the future of the lumber industry by noting that already were the supplies of timber of some species were failing and some almost exhausted. He gave as examples black walnut, white pine (“growing rapidly to be a rarity on the market”) and spruce for pulpwood. The list of species once considered valueless were being harvested more and being accepted as merchantable due to the exhaustion of more valuable kinds, Price wrote.
“It is natural that the lumberman should not turn eagerly from a system whose only aim is to secure the highest possible present profit from the forest to one which includes provisions for the production of a second crop from the lumbered area,” Price stated. However, he wrote that the time for “practical forestry has fully arrived.”18
The second article in the paper was excerpts from a 1909 report issued by the U. S. Forest Service, “The Timber Supply of the United States,” that claimed that the nation was cutting its forests faster than the annual growth. The report stated the nation was cutting its forests three times as fast as new timber was growing. “There is menace in the continuance of such conditions. While we might never reach absolute timber exhaustion, the unrestricted exploitation of our forests in the past has already had serious effects and it will have worse if it is allowed to continue unchecked.” White pine was used as one of the examples in the report. “White pine, for instance, which was once considered inexhausible, has fallen off seventy per cent in cut since 1890, and more than forty-five per cent since 1900.”
The report noted “The fact that timber has been cheap and abundant has made us careless of its production and reckless in its use.” It went on to give the example of Germany which was managing its forests so that wood growth exceeded timber production. “But to reach the necessary condition of equilibrium between timber production and consumption will take many years of vigorous effort by individual forest owners, by the States, and by the National Government. None of them can solve the problem alone; all must work together.”19
The office of Forest, Game, and Fish Warden was created by the Legislature in 1909, to replace the existing Fish and Game Warden position. J. A. Viquesney was appointed to the new position. The 1909 law also called for forest protection and research and provided for punishment of individuals and company owners who intentionally or carelessly set forest fires.20
In his 1911 book, Brooks surveyed what other states were doing to protect their forests and made a number of recommendations. The first was for the appointment of a state forester with duties in the areas of education, advice to private land owners, forest fire control, collection of data on forest and forest industries, and determining whether state-owned lands should be retained for forestry purposes. To encourage tree planting he recommended a law that would exempt from taxes for a period of years land that is planted to carefully prepared specifications or provide for a scale of rebates on such lands. Also recommended was for the state to agree to the acquisition of land by the federal government for a national forest.21
In an article in American Forestry magazine in 1913, Merritt Wilson, a West Virginia lumberman, wrote that unless the effort is made “to protect the growing timber and reforest the cutover lands of West Virginia that the lumber industry, one of the leading industries of our state, will soon be almost a thing of the past. The uncut area is getting smaller every year and it would seem that the only way to have a supply for the future is to grow it.” He noted that this state is “perhaps as well adapted to growing timber as any State east of the Mississippi river, unless it is Maine, and while it is well adapted to growing timber, much of the area is of little value for anything else, owing to the rough and mountainous character of the country.” Later in his article, Wilson gave his estimate of 12,000 square miles of the state “better adapted for growing timber than anything else.”
Wilson recommended the creation of a state Forestry Commission with the power to buy cut-over lands. Like Brooks, he also recommended using the tax laws to encourage the setting aside of land for reforestation.
He stressed that fire was the greatest threat to growing new forests. He noted that the cause of most forest fires were sparks from railroad and logging company locomotives and fires set by farmers to make more range for livestock, as well fires set by those who just want to see the woods burn. Lack of care by the railroad companies came under particular criticism from Wilson. “It is our opinion that companies and individuals carelessly letting fires get started should be made to pay damages for any timber and other property destroyed.”22
At the national level forested lands were being protected in the growing national forest system. However, all the first national forests had to be located in the west, as that is where the federal government owned land. The government had no authority to purchase private land for preserves. Following the establishment of the national forests in the west, efforts began to have legislation passed to allow the establishment of federal forest reserves in the Appalachians. Those in favor stressed the importance of forests in preventing flooding and siltation and regulation of stream flow. Following bad flooding in 1907 with millions of dollars of damages along the Monongahela and Ohio Rivers, the role of the cutover mountains in the headwaters in making the situation worse became obvious. Finally in 1911 Congress passed the Weeks Act which authorized the federal purchase of forests to protect the headwaters of navigable streams.
The first purchase within West Virginia for national forest purpose was in Tucker County in 1915. In 1920 the Monongahela purchase area was proclaimed as the Monongahela National Forest. The first property purchased for the MNF in the Greenbrier Valley was from the George Craig and Sons Lumber Company in April 1923. The tract contained 9,674 acres on — 23
The State of West Virginia was also taking additional action to protect the state’s forest lands. In 1921 the West Virginia Game and Fish Commission was created for the purpose of — need copy of law
The first tracts purchased by the Commission were in the Greenbrier Valley. In January 1924 A. D. Neill sold 10,847 acres to the Commission and a year later 4,546 acres were purchased from the Watoga Land Association. Today the former tract makes up most of Seneca State Forest and the other about half of Watoga State Park.24
As related in the articles on the individual lumber companies, most of their lands went into government ownership after being cut. In 2011 the Monongahela National Forest owns —- acres in Greenbrier and Pocahontas Counties and state parks and forests make up another —- acres of mostly former lumber company land.
The Fish and Game Commission also had responsibilities for a forest fire protection system.
Perhaps find somewhere in the fire discussion to fit in quotes from:
PT, 10/31/1901 – “This section has been scourged with fires several times within the past two years where forest fires were never known before, the woods being too dense and damp to burn, but with the opening up of farms and the cutting of the timber the woods are becoming dry.” from article on a fire on Laurel Creek (of Williams River)
PT, 11/5/1931 – Forest fires burned 64,110 acres in the county, January 1922 to January 1931 – estimated timber damage, $135,984
PT, 10/15/1914 Lookout stations in Pocahontas County were on Marlin Mountain at Mt. View Orchard, Briery Knob, and Bald Knob. “The country covered by the Marlin Mountain lookout is the Greenbrier Valley from the Alleghany top to the top of the high dividing ridge between the Greenbrier, and Cheat, Elk, Williams and Cranberry, as far north as Cass and as far south as Spice Run.”
Shawkey, p 286, F&G C installed 34 steel fire towers “within past five years” – “put nearly one-half of the timber area of the State, which is seriously subject to forest fires, under the observation of the rangers who are on duty constantly during the dry weather periods of the year.”
Despite all the human tragedy associated with the Great Depression of the 1930s, it reduced the demand for timber and thus reduced the amount of cutting, giving forests the opportunity to recover from the over cutting of the previous half-century. Marginal farm land was abandoned as the nation slid into depression and allowed to return to timberland.
The Depression also produced also one of the most important conservation efforts in the nation’s history, the Civilian Conservation Corps. Within the geographic area covered by this writing a total of fourteen CCC camps were established. Some had a brief existence while others were open for almost the entire period of the CCC program. All did work in the areas of reforestation, forest fire control, development of parks —- that are still obvious today.25
In 1933 the W. Va. Legislature replaced the Forest, Game and Fish Commission with the Conservation Commission (now the Department of Natural Resources) — allow state to work with the CCC – This law also established the position of state forester — need law
At West Virginia University, the Chair of Forestry became the School of Forestry in 1935 — check details
The good work of natural forces, with the human assistance related above, have restored the forests to the mountains and bottom lands of the Greenbrier Valley and at first glance they would look very familiar to any early settler who might by some way be able to return to the valley. Obviously, the vast acres of cleared farmland would be different than the few small clearings found by the original settlers, but the forested mountains would seem the same. As was the case 300 years ago, there is a progression of tree species as altitude changes, with the spruce on the highest ridges.
However, differences would be quickly noticed by our reincarnated pioneer. Today’s forest of second and third growth trees would look much different than the mostly mature forest found by the early settlers. The proportion of the various species would be considerably different now, with some species found by the original settlers non-existent or greatly reduced in extent.
Some of the differences in today’s forest from the forest that existed 300 years ago are the natural changes that occur when forests regrow from a disturbance. At one time it was believed that the climax forest in a given area was permanent; following a destruction of a section of forest, the eventual mature forest would be the same as was there before. This has found not to be the case since it takes up to hundreds of years for a forest to become mature and conditions of climate and other factors affecting forests are not the same over time. Other changes from the forest the first Europeans found are more directly the result of human activity.
One difference is the acreages of white pine, red spruce, and hemlock are much reduced from the forest the first settlers found. Whether this is a temporary condition as the forests recover from the clear-cut logging operations and grow their way towards maturity (assuming we would let them do this) or a permanent change in our forests, only time will tell.
As the lumbering operations were just getting underway, nature was making changes in the forests. In the documents in a — court case was the following statement by Daniel O’Connell:
Respondent further states that whether it is generally known or not, it is a fact, that Pine timber in that section within the last two years has been seriously prayed upon by a insect styled amongst lumbermen as “the bug”.
Mr. Brewer, as the respondent is informed and believes, becoming uneasy lest some of his pine timber should be lost to him on account of this insect decided to cut some of the timber of that character standing upon these lands during the present [1893-94] logging season.26
The writer of a news item in January 1895 noted “Everything has combined against lumbering the past few years. Bugs destroyed the timber, the rains ceased, and the price has fallen.”27
“The bug” referred by O’Connell is the southern pine beetle (Dendroctonus frontalis). This insect is one of the most destructive insects of pines in the southern United States
Forestry Quarterly, Vol IX, 1911, No. 3, September 1911 – a news note on the southern pine beetle states “It appears, however, that only at long intervals does it increase to such numbers as to cause widespread depredations, such as, for example, the great invasion of 1890 – 1893 in the Virginias.”
CWP, PT, 12/19/1935, refers to the southern pine beetle taking out the yellow pine east of the GR "more than forty years ago" "I remember being taken to a high mountain to look out over the Greenbrier peniplain (sic) and to see vast stretches of country brown as a sheep skin form the dead pines. This tree was superceded (sic) by the oaks, soft maple, hickory, and where the ground was too thin for better species of trees, chinquepin oak and bull pine." At least the southern pine beetle is a natural part of the North American ecosystem and the native trees have evolved ways to survive attacks by it. Unfortunately, such is not the case with imported dangers to the forests, where the native tree species have no natural protection. One of the first things our returnee would probably notice is something that is not present in today’s forest - the magnificent American chestnut tree. Although to the settler most species were just trees that were in the way of establishing farms, the chestnut was a tree of great usefulness, both for its wood and its nuts that provided food for both man and animal. The absence of this tree is due to a natural cause, but it is humans and not nature that must take the blame. In the early 1900s, as the timbering in the valley was at its most intensive, the chestnut was under attack from a foreigner invader. Chinese chestnut trees imported from Asia for nursery stock brought with them a fungus that the native chestnut trees had no resistance to. In 1904 it was noticed that trees in the New York Zoological Park were dying. The spores of the fungus were carried by wind, bird, insects, and people throughout the tree’s range in the Appalachian Mountains. By 1910 American chestnut trees were dying across Pennsylvania and the blight was moving south at a rate of 50 miles a year. All efforts to stop the blight failed and by the 1950s the tree was virtually gone from Appalachian forests. There is some hope for the future of the American chestnut as a feature of the Appalachian forests. Even today chestnuts will grow from roots of long dead trees. However, before long the youthful chestnut succumb to the blight. But research efforts have been underway for a number of years to cross-breed with the blight resistant Chinese chestnut and eventually produce an American chestnut that is also blight resistant. Chestnut blight is itself merely the most dramatic symptom of epidemic in Appalachian forest, one that came in with the twentieth century but has hardly run its course. The globalization of the world’s economy is being accompanied by a less beneficial globalization of its ecology. International trade has opened the doors to some very undesirable immigrants. Brought in purposely for one reason or another, or unintentionally on lumber, furniture, exotic plants, and sundry other imports, more than a dozen introduced pests and diseases now assail Appalachia.28 Another example of an “on purpose” human decision that has resulted in a curse to our forests was bringing the gypsy moth, a native of Europe, to this country in -1869 -- 1868 -- in hopes of using it for silk production. Some escaped into the wild and trees began to die due to the defoliation caused by the gypsy moth caterpillars. From the initial defoliation in Massachusetts in 1889, the moth has moved its way south and west, reaching West Virginia in ----. Oak trees, valuable to both wildlife and timberman, have been particularly impacted by the gypsy moth. The moths are also partial to beech, pines, and hemlock. One author recently wrote that “if gypsy moths continue their recurrent pattern of eating all the oaks they can find, other species of trees will take over the dominance of the forests. That will mean fewer acorns, which now serve as the main substitute for chestnuts as wildlife food. The number of wild animals that Appalachian forests can support will take another sharp dip.”29 Fortunately, there is some good news with regard to this pest. A fungus from Japan has been found that attacks only the gypsy moth and has reduced the amount of acres defoliated by --- A pioneer returning to the valley a few years from now will probably find another of tree species common in his time, the hemlock, to be missing. Hemlock has made up a smaller percentage of second growth forest and now a tiny, less than 1/16th of an inch, Asian import, the hemlock woolly adelgid, is threatening to eliminate these magnificent trees from the forests of the eastern United States. It was first found found in 1951 in Richmond, Virginia, in a hemlock tree near Maymont Park. The park was originally a private estate and it is believed the insect may have come to this country with the establishment on the estate of a Japanese garden in 1911.30 There was no particular concern about this pest until the late 1980s when was found in a stand of hemlocks outside of the city. About the same time hemlocks were found to be invested with the woolly adelgid in Shenandoah National Park in Northern Virginia. By the mid-1990s most of hemlocks in the park were dead. The pest has been working its way north, west and south and is now found in sixteen states, covering about half the range of the two hemlock species in the east. In West Virginia, the insect has invaded almost half of the state’s counties. After being infected, a hemlock will die in about three years. There is a chemical treatment but it is expensive to apply and and repeated treatments are needed. Another disease caused by an import is white pine blister rust, caused by a fungus that came to --- The spruce budworm, coming from ----, attacks spruce, firs, tamarack, hemlocks, and pines. In recent decades even more horrors have come to the forests. These include: * Dogwood Anthracnose * Balsam Woolly Aphid * Adelges piceae * Dutch Bark Disease * Butternut Canker * Oak Wilt * Sudden Oak Death, Asian longhorn beetle, emerald ash borer
Sullivan, Rose, New Threats to Mountain State Trees Emerge, WV Wildlife Diversity News, WV DNR, Vol. 19 , No. 4, Winter 2003
Invasive plants impacting forests include: * autumn olive * multiflora rose * tree of heaven * barberry * crown vetch * garlic mustard * Asiatic bittersweet The fewer acres of white pine, spruce, and hemlock, mentioned before, would be a direct result of the lumbering operations. The white pine, the dominate species at lower elevations to the east of the river, now exists only in scattered stands. In its place today are ------- The fires that followed the logging were severe enough in some areas to burn away, not only the debris left behind by the loggers, but the soil itself, leaving only bedrock. Recovery of these areas is, of course, taking longer -- Air pollution has placed a strain on the acid rain - soil nutrient depletion Another environmental factor that is determining the future of our forests is climate change caused by global warming. While the argument goes on about about much of this is to be blamed on man’s activities (among politicians, not reputable scientists), the forests of the Greenbrier Valley, as elsewhere, are slowly changing under its impact. Dan Lewerenz, Associated Press, article in Charleston Gazette, 6/13/2003, "Oaks decline, maples move in", on decline of oaks, increase in maples. Reasons given are (1) fire suppression. Maples sensitive to fire and few used to survive ground fires - oaks use fire as part of natural regeneration. (2) decrease in soil quantity and quality. Soils washed away following clear cutting of 100 years ago and soil polluted by acid rain and stripped of important elements - maples more tolerant of acidic soils . (3) deer population increase. Deer would rather eat oak than maple. Another difference in today's forests as compared to what the original settlers found is in the areas where spruce timber is found. Although it hard to distinguish much of the trees today are Norway spruce rather than the native red spruce. This is another change based on decisions made by those concerned with the future of forests. Starting with Rothkugel, Norway spruce has been used for replanting areas where red spruce was the native tree -
need to find out how much Norway spruce seeding was done and how much of today’s spruce is red and how much Norway – need to confirm that Norway does a better job of surviving the conditions found in cut-over and often burned-over forest land as claimed in Carvel, “Arboreal Mysteries Unraveled”
But I should not end on a pessimistic note. Change is part of the natural scheme and will continue as long as this planet exists. How much the activities of humans have sped up and otherwise impacted this change is a matter of debate among scientists and politicians (more among the latter). Hopefully, before too many more years pass the so-called “intelligent” species will move from decision making based mostly on self-interest and short-term goals to more thoughts for the future of our fragile earth and the best-interest of our children and grandchildren. As for our forests, words written in a February 1, 1905, letter from Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson to Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot, are as true today as when written, “In the administration of the forest reserves it must be clearly borne in mind that all land is to be devoted to its most productive use of the permanent good of the whole people, and not for the temporary benefit of individuals or companies . . . “. . . where conflicting interests must be reconciled the question will always be decided from he standpoint of the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run.”31 Although, as related in the previous pages, the timbermen of the late 1800s and early 1900s did a very tho--- job of removing the trees from the Greenbrier Valley, virgin timber does exist in a few areas. The easiest to access is the Gaudineer Knob ----- . Here --- acres of timber were saved from the lumberman's axe and saw by ------ Baun refers to "A virgin forest area some three miles east of Linwood at the southern end of Back Allegheny Mountain (where it joins the southern end of Cheat Mountain) ...." p 82 Baun has photo on p 80 of virgin white oak near Anthonys Creek - Virginians for Wilderness website, http://asecular.com/forests/anthonycr.htm, Old Growth/Anthony Creek, locates what it thinks is on the east-facing slope just west of the North Fork
A. Price, PT, 12/28/1916, “A forest is a long time in growing, but they do grow.”
PT, 4/7/1927 article on the Upper Tract. “The Upper Tract has in it now the large and important town of Durbin, and one of the big tanneries of the country, but for the most part the land is regaining its wilderness estate, and soon it will be an ideal retreat for the lovers of nature, who will find all the delights of the forest and stream. Time will heal the hurts made by the timber operations, and the experts of the National Forest aid materially in its rejuvenation.”

Although this book is not intended to be a social history of this part of West Virginia, the author feels it would be irresponsible not to comment on some of the recent writings and books about the impact on the development of the natural resources of West Virginia has had on the people of the state and its environment. The usual theme of these books and articles is that it was a disaster, leaving behind an exploited and dispirited people, unable to cope with modern life and a ruined landscape. This analysis has been extended to all regions of the state and all resources, including the timbering in the Greenbrier Valley. Some of these writings, quite frankly, contain historical mistakes about the Greenbrier Valley which show a lack of historical research (or an interpretation of research to meet pre-conceived conclusions). Much of what the writers have said about the impact of development and the actions of developers (past and present) is true, but much is also total imagination. For the coal producing regions of West Virginia, much of what is written about the impacts of development on the land and people is, unfortunately true. However, the Greenbrier Valley and other parts of eastern West Virginia --- There is no argument that the timbering that took place from the late 1800s to about 1930 had major environmental impacts. This has been a major theme in this chapter. It is in discussing the impact on the people and society of the valley that recent authors have gone greatly off base. What is forgotten by these writers is that the valley had a long-established, viable economic base and settled population, based on agriculture, prior to the timber development, unlike much of the coal producing regions of the state, where the coal development was the first and virtually only aspect of the economy. The people of the Greenbrier Valley were not the stereotype “hillbillies” of books, movies, and recent social studies of the Appalachian Mountain states, but as educated -- as any -- In Pocahontas County, for example, three, not one, but three, preparatory schools for the University of Virginia were established in the 1840s. As related in Chapter I, by the time of the Civil War, a series of turnpikes connected the valley with the rest of Virginia. Lewisburg was an educational center The land purchased by the lumber companies was of little value to the agricultural based economy of the Greenbrier Valley. (References to the cost of removing timber to convert land to farm use were made in Chapter I.) The companies did not purchase land being used for agriculture (why would they?), except for sites along the railroad needed for the mills and mill towns. Generally most of these sites went back to agricultural use after the mills closed and remain so today. Did the local landowners get as much as they should have for their timber and timber land? Perhaps not, but this is a question that cannot be answered with certainty now. Getting any income from land that was useless for your main economic activity can only be considered a positive. (Considering the number of lumber company bankruptcies, some folks may have gotten too much for their timber.) The major tracts of land acquired for the lumber companies were not stolen from a group of illiterate farmers. Most of the timber acreage had been in the hands of speculators from “day one” and passed from one group to another over the years. The needs of the lumber companies for food provided a new market for the farmers in the valley and the C&O provided easier access to distant markets. The jobs and business opportunities provided by the timbering operations allowed at least one or two generations of their sons and daughters to remain at home rather than having to leave the area to find employment. As has been recounted before, the timber cutting had negative impacts on the land and forests and there were certainly social impacts from the influx of people, some from other countries, that came with the railroad and timber development. But in terms of history this timber “boom” period was too short, only about sixty years, to radically change either the long-established economic or social situation in the Greenbrier Valley. (The major timbering was completed in less than thirty years.) As for the coming of people from other enthic groups to the valley during the timbering era, in the author’s opinion, at least, it is a shame that some of these new residents were not able to remain in order to provide a more diverse population today. Once the timber was cut, the departing timber companies and their employees did not leave behind an improvished population with no other way of making a living. Obviously, the economic boost provided by the mills was missed by many, but the agricultural base remained, as well as the railroad connecting the valley to the nation and various other improvements that had been put in place during the timbering period. Remaining from the boom timbering period were the two tanneries, the continuing lumber operation at Cass, and other smaller lumbering operations, which --- As the nation went into the Great Depression it may have been just as well for the people of the valley that the timber boom was over; the economic conditions of the 1930s would have brought it to a sudden halt. As it was the boom peaked before 1920 and the valley had been adjusting to The fact that today agriculture can support only a small part of the Greenbrier Valley‘s population has no connection with the timber development. Many other economic factors, both national and international, have brought about the major decrease in the number of people employed in farming. For this part of the state, it has even been suggested that the change of ownership from the lumber companies to the federal government for the Monongahela National Forest is a continuation of some type of evil land ownership by outside interests. This was certainly not the opinion of those alive at the time the cut-over land was being purchased by the federal government. Today, even though memories of the conditions of our forest land following timbering are almost gone, most people will probably agree that the existence of the Monongahela National Forest is a positive for the valley. Though it is true that the federal land might be considered to be owned “from afar,” the owners also include all of us who live in the valley. The land in the MNF is ours and open to all, a considerable difference from the company-owned land in much of the state, with the all too common “no trespassing” signs. Accusations that lumber companies were able to avoid the liability for the environmental impact they had on the land and then make a final profit by selling their cut-over land to the federal government is using a present-day attitude about corporate responsibility that generally did not exist at the time. Besides, we are far from prefect today in making corporations take responsibility for their
The Greenbrier Wilderness
E. D. Coontz
The miles of torn and wasted wood,
Where once a giant forest stood;
—– so dense with laurel and spruce
That the sun could seldom find excuse
To pierce these depths of woodland shade,
—- this wondrous woodland glad
Among deep-rooted trees of earth,
And Greenbrier’s soul was given birth
The waters pure and crystal clear,
With springs that burst from every where
But, there came that day of sacrifice
For this nature’s wooded paradise:
When man had laid his strings of steel,
That power the woodland soon must feel,
With ax and saw men followed fast,
To strip these hills of forests vast;
The few that failed to feel the stroke,
Beneath the hand of fire were broke,
The ghosts of trees stand here and there,
–rch by flame with branches bare.
What means that pile of rusted steel
That brush and bramble half conceal
What is that twisted coil of wire,
Half hidden in the boggish mire?
That crumbling pile of brick you see
Shows where the great boilers used to be
The pond – now home for croaking frogs,
Once covered by a thousand logs,
That grassy plot by yonder wood,
Shows where the horse’s stable stood
And just another ghastly scene,
That broken bridge ‘cross yonder stream
That tangled trail up yonder glen,
Was once the path of horse and men
Out here among the mossy stones,
We view a pile of bleaching bones,
A broken horse perhaps was shot,
His carcass left out here to rot,
Here two stones that mark a tomb,
Where some lone woods man met his doom,
A lonely grave o’er grown with grass
Is seen by few who daily pass.
Beneath the old abandoned grade,
The wood chuck burrows unafraid,
For nothing now disturbs his rest,
His domain here by far the best.
Out from a nook of sheltered shade,
The ruffed grouse struts all unafraid,
An eagle soars on dizzy heights
And owl voices stir upon the nights,
Ravens are talking on the hills,
Their voices mingling with the rills.
The mountains wrapped in slumber deep,
Silent rocks you soul to sleep,
Out here beneath the silent stars,
Now still – no hum of motor cars
What rest tired hearts so seldom meet,
No tramp of men on brick-paved street,
No rumbling of a noisy train,
To shake your nerves or wrack your brain.
The years have sped, the mills have died,
But they left their scars on every side,
A waste of briars and tangled vine,
Where once had stood the stately pine
Around yon green and grassy clump
The remnant of the rotting stump
Where nature once held regal sways
The herds man’s sheep come now to graze.
The camp with all its life is gone,
Some rotting boards are left alone,
Where voices rang now all is still,
For silent stands the noisy mill.
The woods-man’s voices all are dead,
Along the path where sportsmen tread.32g in the early 1870sLess than a human lifetime was all the time it took; starting in the early 1870s and completed by the early 1930s. In that period the pre-European settlement timber in the Upper Greenbrier Valley had been cut, almost down to every single tree. By the late 1800s and early 1900s the technology available to the lumber industry had made it very efficient in the removal of timber on a large scale. What was true in the Greenbrier Valley was also true in most of eastern West Virginia and much of the rest of the state during the same period. The state’s magnificent forests had been turned into boards, flooring, lath, pulpwood, tan bark, barrel staves, ship pins, shingles, utility poles, and forest floor litter well before nascent efforts to protect some of the nation’s pre-European settlement forests and introduce sustainable forestry practices had a foothold in this state.
The attitude of many towards the forest was that the timber supply was endless. In his 1911 book, Forestry and Wood Industries, published by the West Virginia Geological Survey, Alonzo B. Brooks summarized this feeling:
The need of preserving the forests of this country was not apparent to many persons 200 years ago. The pioneer settlers of our Eastern states built their homes in what they considered an almost boundless wilderness. Trees were regarded by them, naturally, as obstacles in the way of improvement, for they were removed with great labor and could not be sold or given away. The openings first made were insignificant in comparison with the vast woodlands which surrounded them. But this was not long the case. As the population increased and settlements were extended from year to year, the small cornfields were widened into extensive farms; fires began to take their toll from the forests in the region of settlements; and the occupation of lumbering began. In the course of time the various agents of destruction, working together, produced a serious condition in the forests. The condition was not readily observed because the people had not been trained to expect trouble from such a source. The conception that the forest was boundless and inexhaustible had been transmitted from one generation to another until it had become fixed in the minds of the inhabitants as a firm belief. With this inherited handicap, therefore, the present generations were slow in believing even what reason taught them was true.1
Brooks noted that West Virginia originally was almost unbroken forest covering more than 15.5 million acres and containing 150 billion feet of timber. At the time he was writing 60% of the state was still timbered. However, in 1910 there were 83 large band and about 900 portable sawmills operating with the capacity to cut all the timber in the state in the next 16 years. He predicted that by 1940 none of the band mills would be in operation due to the depletion of the timber.2
The lumber companies working in the Greenbrier Valley certainly seem to have operated under this belief of unlimited timber supply. Most came to West Virginia following the depletion of timber in other states and probably assumed they could move on to other areas after this state was cut over.
Arthur H. Winchester, who was an investor in West Virginia timber lands in the late 1800s (including the Cheat Mountain land that he purchased for Dewing and Sons that was later purchased by the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company), is reported to have stated in a hearing before the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representative in 1897 “We [West Virginia] don’t need scientific forestry down our way. The growth of our timber is so rapid that the forests restore themselves without artificial help as fast as they can be cut away.” What Winchester was claiming the state’s timber industry did need was the imposition of tariffs to protect it from cheaper lumber being imported from Canada.3
At least partially due to this attitude, during the period when the pre-settlement timber was being stripped from the mountainsides and valley land in the Upper Greenbrier Valley very little was done in the way of reforestation. The brief employment by the George Craig and Sons Lumber Company of a trained forester was related in the article on that company (see Winterburn, Chapter X). There are a few references to the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company making an effort to replant the area the company logged. One was in a news article at the time of absorption of the West Virginia Spruce Lumber Company into the parent company in 1909. The article included:
Another interesting feature of their operations has been the adoption of scientific forestry methods in their lumbering, which, according to their experience to date, assures them practically an inexhaustible supply of timber on their present holdings
Only the right timber has been logged, they are constantly replanting, and today they have 25,000 acres which has been logged over which is coming, both from seedling and young timber growth, to a condition which will permit of most profitable logging thereon again before they have anywhere near logged their entire premises.4
An article on the lumber operation at Cass in the American Lumberman in 1911 made a brief reference to replanting by W. Va. Pulp and Paper. Following comments on the company’s efforts to control fire, the article continues: “Only about 1500 of its 25,000 acres of the company’s cut over lands have been burned over and these are being carefully replanted, as are other areas where the young timber left is not sufficient to provide a heavy future growth. In replanting, the men pick up the small spruce which are to be found in abundance among the older timber and these are put into ground within twenty-four hours.”5
WVP&P wrote to Brooks in 1910 and reported the company had planted 25,000 spruce trees in 1909, with about 80% growing a year later, and 170,000 spruce and 2000 yellow poplars in 1910. In the letter the company expressed it great interest “in the reproduction of forests on our property and it is our present intention to do everything in our power in the future to save and propagate the timber.” The letter stated that timber under about ten inches was being left. “We confidently believe that if the fire can be kept out of the old slashing that our property will reproduce itself rapidly and that by the time we have lumbered over it, it will be possible to go over it again, and while of course we will not be able to secure the quantity of large lumber, we can make the crops perpetual for pulp.”6
However, other than these limited efforts – and WVP&P seems to have discontinued its reforestation program after a few years – the companies cutting the Greenbrier Valley timber did it with no particular thought to the future.
But, as always in judging the actions of those who came before us, we must be careful not to use the standards and knowledge of our time. Particularly, since in many parts of the world, including parts of environmentally “enlightened” North America, the forests are continued to be attacked as if they go on forever. Our ancestors could only see unending forests as they climbed to the top of each mountain – today we can see the entire earth virtually at once from space. Yet, we are generally behaving as a lumber company of 1900 without the excuse of limited vision. Our approach today to other natural resources, particularly oil and natural gas, is not much different. As the 21st Century gets underway we still seem to operate mainly on the belief that these resources are infinite.
The generation that is using “mountain top removal” for the production of coal is not exactly in a position to criticize those who clear cut the timber of our West Virginia mountains. The trees have regrown; the mountains will not. True, acres of ugliness did follow the timbering. Clear cut sites are not pretty and fires followed the logging in many areas, burning the left behind debris and in places burning off the eons-old accumulation of humus down to bare rock. But trees have regrown and even the areas of the worse fires are slowly healing. The ugliness and waste of mountain top removal will remain with us and the generations to come, forever.
Attitude was not the only reason for the “clear cut” timbering that was done; economics played a major role. Even lumbermen who may have had the foresight to realize that the amount of timber was finite were confined by the economics of the business. The average company held a relatively small amount of timber and reaching it required for most the major cost of building a railroad. There was no way a company could regain its expenses and pay its debts if it built a railroad some distance into a section of its holdings, take only part of the timber, and then remove the track, planning to relay it back a number of years later to take some additional timber. The only way to make money on the investment of money for timber, equipment, and railroad construction was to take it all. Only a few companies owned large enough amounts of timber land to be able to look forward to a return to the cut-over portion of their holdings.
In his 1908 article on forest land management in West Virginia, Max Rothkugel recommended the use of portable mills, 15,000 to 20,000 feet per day capacity, rather than large capacity mills, of up to 100,000 capacity. “Big mills with their large investment in equipment and in rails must disappear before management of the present stands can be practiced. With a comparatively small investment tied up in mills and railroads the forest can be constantly maintained in a productive condition and still a good interest percent on the original investment would be assured.”7
In the Upper Greenbrier Valley, the only companies with large enough land holdings to consider being able to recut their own land were St. Lawrence Boom and Manufacturing/Sherwood Companies, Greenbrier River Lumber Company, and West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company. There is no evidence that SLB&M/Sherwood ever made any effort in reforestation. GRLCo was mainly a land holding company for John McGraw and, other than the small amount cut in the early 1900s, sold its property to other lumber companies.
As noted before there are a few references to reforestation by WVP&P in early years. One of these is in the 1911 book, Forestry and Wood Industries. Under the Randolph County section, there is statement: “It is gratifying to note that at least one lumber company – the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company – is making extensive plantations of spruce trees on its cut-over lands near the head of Shavers Fork of Cheat river.” However, no evidence exists that the effort continued on a long-term basis. Mower Lumber did cut second growth timber on its former WVP&P land, but this was due to the efforts of Mother Nature and not planned reforestation.8
As early as the mid-1890s the logging had been going on for a sufficient length of time that the change it created in the landscape was becoming obvious. In early 1897 the Times made the following observation:
The disappearance of the logs and timbermen have made a great change in the appearance of things between Marlinton and Driscol. Our old acquaintances, the logs, will hardly be recognizable when they return in a year or two as furniture, goods-boxes and picture frames. It makes a great difference with logs, as well as boys, to go abroad, remain awhile and then come back to serve some useful or ornamental purpose.9
However, there were voices during the boom period expressing regret about the destruction of the area’s forests and concern about the future timber supply.
In 1898, even before the major logging had begun in the Greenbrier Valley, the West Virginia Board of Agriculture declared “Owing to the rapid destruction of our forests it is high time that something be done looking toward the preservation and protection of our timber land.”10
In a 1903 article on the operations of WVP&P on Cheat Mountain, Marlinton resident Norman Price commented, “It is a pity that the government did not set aside the forests about the headwaters of our rivers as a forest reserve.” However, he followed that sentence with “However the sacrifice of the trees has brought capital to be invested in the county, and therewith we must rest content.”11
On December 5, 1906, a traveling salesman of Sure Shot tobacco by the name of Ignatius Brennen sat on the end of a crosstie at Stony Bottom and wrote the following poem, presumably to his wife or girlfriend.
“In the Greenbrier Mountains”
With a pad on my knee, dear,
I’m penning to thee dear,
A line of myself emblamatic,
Through not sentimental,
Nor yet Continental,
But very much straight Democratic.
In the Greenbrier Mountains,
Where natural fountains,
Have slacked the wild deer of its thirsting,
I’m plying my trading,
And green haunts invading,
And quaffing from water to bursting.
When God made this Creation,
His intention, I’d reckon,
Was a home for the wild beasts and savage,
But the white man came onward,
Moonward and sunward,
Its fine virgin forests to ravage.
The forests depleted,
The rape is completed,
What nature held sacred has vanished,
The fawn and its mother,
And lo-the poor Indian, are banished.
The fir and the pine tree,
The hemlock and vine-tree,
Exchanges of sorrow are granting,
The fire-ravished hill-side,
The snake haunted rill-side,
Inanimate requiems are chanting.
The Greenbrier River,
Rolls on with a quiver,
Polluted with chemical lotion,
It hastes to connection,
In southwest direction,
Contented when lost in the ocean.
I turn back the pages,
And stop with the ages,
When nature was absolute master,
Then picture the white man,
(Lets hope he’s a right man),
Who wrough all this awful disaster.12
The author would love to know what brought about this outburst from Mr. Brennen (an early environmentalist?). Perhaps "chemical lotion" referred to some discharge from the tannery at Frank? It would seem something more likely to be written about twenty years later; in 1906 the stripping of the mountainsides of timber had only begun. In an article written after logging was underway on the North Fork of the Cherry River, W. C. Dodrill described the impact on that watershed and compared it with the adjoining Cranberry River. An object lesson in the changed conditions brought about by cutting away the timber may be seen along the divide between Cherry and Cranberry. On the Cherry side all the timber in some place has been cut down except the birch that is not of the best quality and a few, very few, other species that are worthless for lumber. Worthless and broken logs strew the ground. Tramway roads leading to the tops of the hills are found at short intervals. Each rain cuts these deeper and washes away the humus that is so essential to plant life. Nothing remains to remind one of the greatness of this beautiful old forest but the decaying stumps. By counting the ring growths of some of the black spruce stumps it was found that the tree had been nourished by the rains of more than 500 summers and had defied the storms of as many winters. In this region destruction and desolation is depicted everywhere. But what are the conditions existing on the other side of the divided where the woodman's axe has been withheld! The forest admirer may wander for days among the grand old trees that have stood for centuries. The ground is covered with a soft carpet of moss and decaying leaves. The water that falls in the form of rain or snow gradually sinks into the ground. What is not utilized by the trees seeks a lower level by a slow process. Dodrill made note of the difference in water runoff between the two areas, with the Cherry nearly always muddy and the Cranberry nearly always clear; greater floods in the former and fewer in the later; also, more water in the Cranberry than the Cherry than the time of drought. In noting that "Water supply is as much a question in the conservation of the forests as the timber supply. One in a measure depends upon the other." Dodrill was giving one of the arguments that lead to the creation of eastern national forests. He also noted the lesser number of birds found on the Cherry since lumber operations began. Within two years. timbering is to begin on the Cranberry, Dodrill wrote, "When this occurs one of the most beautiful and picturesque mountain streams in the Appalachian region will be robbed of its greatest glory . . . "13 A 1912 article in the Times with the title "Timber," it was noted that timber production was already more that thought possible and there was still a lot to be cut: The lumberman have already taken from this county threes times as much timber as the highest guess ever made at it prior to the building of the railroad. Three hundred million a year for the past ten years is a low estimate and three billion feet of lumber has been shipped from the mills and great areas of timber are not touched yet. About one third of the timber has been cut is one guess at the present situation, though that runs the amount of timber to fabulous figures. Just when the timber of this county will give out is a hazy and uncertain period, and the subject is not a welcome one.14 At the time the timbering that would strip the Upper Greenbrier Valley of its trees was getting underway, there were the beginnings of national concern about the massive cutting of the nation's forests. It was probably the removal of forests to provide land for agriculture that began the first concerns about whether the wanton destruction of forest land was a good thing. It was "agriculturalists who saw and appreciated what clearing could do to the land itself, to the soil, the stream flow, the microclimate, and the fish and animal life." As early as 1818 former President James Madison noted that all of the errors in the rural economy of the United States "none is so much to be regretted, perhaps because none is so difficult to repair, as the injurious and excessive destruction of timber and firewood."15 Madison was early in his concern about forest removal, but by the latter part of the Nineteenth Century there were a number of people expressing concern over the destruction of the forests, both for farms and lumber. One of the first given credit for bringing attention to the rapid deforestation and it impacts was George Perkins Marsh with his book Man and Nature, published in 1864. This is a remarkable book, considered by some to be the beginning of the modern environmental movement. One of the most influencial books of its time, second perhaps only to one published five year's earlier, Darwin's Origin of Species. The brief amount of space the author can give to Man and Nature in this writing cannot begin to ----- If one did not know the date it was published, the insight Marsh shows into environmental problems caused by our misuse of our resources reads like the date was 1964 rather than 100 years earlier. Marsh was born in 1901 in the Green Mountains of Vermont, at Woodstock, at the time when the mountains were truly green. He Spending five years in Turkey as -- and then the last 21 years of his life as ambassador to Italy gave Marsh a close look how George Marsh delivered an address before the Agricultural Society of Rutland County, Vermont, on - - - -- - in 1847. Marsh had worn many hats over his lifetime: lawyer, journalist, sheep farmer, mill owner, linguistics scholar, and diplomat. He designed the Washington Monument and co-founded the Smithsonian Institution. But it was in his role as United States senator that he addressed the Agricultural Society. He was the first person to publicly raise the issue of manmade climate change, and his speech helped spark the conservation movement. In his speech, Marsh said: "Man cannot at his pleasure command the rain and the sunshine, the wind and frost and snow, yet it is certain that climate itself has in many instances been gradually changed and ameliorated or deteriorated by human action. The draining of swamps and the clearing of forests perceptibly effect the evaporation from the earth [...] The same causes modify the electrical condition of the atmosphere and the power of the surface to reflect, absorb and radiate the rays of the sun, and consequently influence the distribution of light and heat, and the force and direction of the winds. Within narrow limits too, domestic fires and artificial structures create and diffuse increased warmth, to an extent that may effect vegetation." He was talking about concepts familiar to us now as the urban heat island effect and the greenhouse effect. As a result of his speech, Marsh went on to publish a book titled Man and Nature: or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action (1864). "[M]an is everywhere a disturbing agent," Marsh wrote. "Wherever he plants his foot, the harmonies of nature are turned to discords. The proportions and accommodations which insured the stability of existing arrangements are overthrown. Indigenous vegetable and animal species are extirpated, and supplanted by others of foreign origin, spontaneous production is forbidden or restricted, and the face of the earth is either laid bare or covered with a new and reluctant growth of vegetable forms, and with alien tribes of animal life. Marsh's book was used by those with a growing realization of the for government owned forest reserves to support their case. These efforts resulted in the first national forests being established in the 1890s. These actions followed the passage of the Forest Reserve Act in 1891 authorizing the president to set aside forest reserves from the public domain. At first these lands were managed by the Department of the Interior. Also in 1891, a Division of Forestry was created within the Department of Agriculture. In 1905 the Forestry Bureau was renamed the Forest Service and the forest reserves came under its jurisdiction. Clifford Pinchot was the first head of the USFS. Moving to the state level, in the early 1900s some actions were beginning for the protection of the state’s forest lands. In 1906, a pamphlet entitled The Needs of Forest Protection in West Virginia and Suggestions for a Forest Law was published by Hu Maxwell. He noted the value of the state’s forests for timber and influence on erosion and water flow, their destruction by fire and careless lumbering, and lack of action to prevent waste. However, the law proposed in the pamphlet was considered in the 1907 Legislature but failed to pass.16 Governor William Dawson appointed a three-member Conservation Commission in 1908, with Maxwell as one of the members. The Commission’s report, published in the fall of that year, devoted a major part to a discussion of the forest resources of the state and made recommendations for policies to protect these resources.17 also in 1908? West Virginia University established a Chair of Forestry as a department in its College of Agriculture and selected A. W. Nolan as the school’s first professor of forestry - Brooks, p 361-2 The West Virginia Forestry Association was organized at a meeting in January 1908 at WVU by representatives from 23 counties of the state Brooks p 362 PT, 3/12/1908 - meeting was on Jan. 24, reference in the article to the new department of forestry at WVU, Prof. A. W. Nolan, professor in charge of the new department, elected secretary of the WVFA - objects of the new group included: conservation of forest resources of the state; bring about better state laws for conserving and utilizing forests; take steps to reforesting denuded lands and exempting of woodlands from taxation; encourage tree planting; educate youth to appreciate the economic as well as esthetic value of trees In Forestry Quarterly, Vol. VI, p 329, from Southern Lumberman, 2/15/1908, W. Va. has
added a forestry school the state university
a state forestry association has been formed
State Board of Trade has appointed a committee to draft forest laws and police for the Legislature at its next session
In the early 1900s, just as the timbering boom in the Greenbrier Valley was getting up a full head of steam, The Pocahontas Times printed two articles which warned of the rate at which the nation was cutting its timber resource.
The first was in 1907 with the reprint of an article by an U. S. Department of Agriculture forester, Overton W. Price. Price began his article by noting that the lumber industry in the United States ranked fourth among the manufacturing industries of the country, producing products with an annual value of $566,090,000 and providing employment for considerably more than a million people. He noted rapid improvements in tools and machinery that had taken place in the industry in the previous fifty years. “In effective methods for the harvesting and manufacturing of lumber, the American lumberman has no superior, . . .”
However, Price quickly got to the main point of his article which was that the rapid development of the industry “has been fundamentally unsound in principle” and was heading for failure due to the rate at which it was depleting the resource upon which it depended. “The havoc which has been wrought in the forest of the United States has turned trees into money, but the balance on the wrong side of the sheet by rendering vast areas unproductive.” The sentence quoted in the last paragraph concluded “nor is he equaled in his disregard for the future of the forest which he cuts.” Price noted that although with the data then available “there is no way to foretell accurately the time necessary to exhaust this supply of merchantable timber,” he supports his argument about the dangers to the future of the lumber industry by noting that already were the supplies of timber of some species were failing and some almost exhausted. He gave as examples black walnut, white pine (“growing rapidly to be a rarity on the market”) and spruce for pulpwood. The list of species once considered valueless were being harvested more and being accepted as merchantable due to the exhaustion of more valuable kinds, Price wrote.
“It is natural that the lumberman should not turn eagerly from a system whose only aim is to secure the highest possible present profit from the forest to one which includes provisions for the production of a second crop from the lumbered area,” Price stated. However, he wrote that the time for “practical forestry has fully arrived.”18
The second article in the paper was excerpts from a 1909 report issued by the U. S. Forest Service, “The Timber Supply of the United States,” that claimed that the nation was cutting its forests faster than the annual growth. The report stated the nation was cutting its forests three times as fast as new timber was growing. “There is menace in the continuance of such conditions. While we might never reach absolute timber exhaustion, the unrestricted exploitation of our forests in the past has already had serious effects and it will have worse if it is allowed to continue unchecked.” White pine was used as one of the examples in the report. “White pine, for instance, which was once considered inexhausible, has fallen off seventy per cent in cut since 1890, and more than forty-five per cent since 1900.”
The report noted “The fact that timber has been cheap and abundant has made us careless of its production and reckless in its use.” It went on to give the example of Germany which was managing its forests so that wood growth exceeded timber production. “But to reach the necessary condition of equilibrium between timber production and consumption will take many years of vigorous effort by individual forest owners, by the States, and by the National Government. None of them can solve the problem alone; all must work together.”19
The office of Forest, Game, and Fish Warden was created by the Legislature in 1909, to replace the existing Fish and Game Warden position. J. A. Viquesney was appointed to the new position. The 1909 law also called for forest protection and research and provided for punishment of individuals and company owners who intentionally or carelessly set forest fires.20
In his 1911 book, Brooks surveyed what other states were doing to protect their forests and made a number of recommendations. The first was for the appointment of a state forester with duties in the areas of education, advice to private land owners, forest fire control, collection of data on forest and forest industries, and determining whether state-owned lands should be retained for forestry purposes. To encourage tree planting he recommended a law that would exempt from taxes for a period of years land that is planted to carefully prepared specifications or provide for a scale of rebates on such lands. Also recommended was for the state to agree to the acquisition of land by the federal government for a national forest.21
In an article in American Forestry magazine in 1913, Merritt Wilson, a West Virginia lumberman, wrote that unless the effort is made “to protect the growing timber and reforest the cutover lands of West Virginia that the lumber industry, one of the leading industries of our state, will soon be almost a thing of the past. The uncut area is getting smaller every year and it would seem that the only way to have a supply for the future is to grow it.” He noted that this state is “perhaps as well adapted to growing timber as any State east of the Mississippi river, unless it is Maine, and while it is well adapted to growing timber, much of the area is of little value for anything else, owing to the rough and mountainous character of the country.” Later in his article, Wilson gave his estimate of 12,000 square miles of the state “better adapted for growing timber than anything else.”
Wilson recommended the creation of a state Forestry Commission with the power to buy cut-over lands. Like Brooks, he also recommended using the tax laws to encourage the setting aside of land for reforestation.
He stressed that fire was the greatest threat to growing new forests. He noted that the cause of most forest fires were sparks from railroad and logging company locomotives and fires set by farmers to make more range for livestock, as well fires set by those who just want to see the woods burn. Lack of care by the railroad companies came under particular criticism from Wilson. “It is our opinion that companies and individuals carelessly letting fires get started should be made to pay damages for any timber and other property destroyed.”22
At the national level forested lands were being protected in the growing national forest system. However, all the first national forests had to be located in the west, as that is where the federal government owned land. The government had no authority to purchase private land for preserves. Following the establishment of the national forests in the west, efforts began to have legislation passed to allow the establishment of federal forest reserves in the Appalachians. Those in favor stressed the importance of forests in preventing flooding and siltation and regulation of stream flow. Following bad flooding in 1907 with millions of dollars of damages along the Monongahela and Ohio Rivers, the role of the cutover mountains in the headwaters in making the situation worse became obvious. Finally in 1911 Congress passed the Weeks Act which authorized the federal purchase of forests to protect the headwaters of navigable streams.
The first purchase within West Virginia for national forest purpose was in Tucker County in 1915. In 1920 the Monongahela purchase area was proclaimed as the Monongahela National Forest. The first property purchased for the MNF in the Greenbrier Valley was from the George Craig and Sons Lumber Company in April 1923. The tract contained 9,674 acres on — 23
The State of West Virginia was also taking additional action to protect the state’s forest lands. In 1921 the West Virginia Game and Fish Commission was created for the purpose of — need copy of law
The first tracts purchased by the Commission were in the Greenbrier Valley. In January 1924 A. D. Neill sold 10,847 acres to the Commission and a year later 4,546 acres were purchased from the Watoga Land Association. Today the former tract makes up most of Seneca State Forest and the other about half of Watoga State Park.24
As related in the articles on the individual lumber companies, most of their lands went into government ownership after being cut. In 2011 the Monongahela National Forest owns —- acres in Greenbrier and Pocahontas Counties and state parks and forests make up another —- acres of mostly former lumber company land.
The Fish and Game Commission also had responsibilities for a forest fire protection system.
Perhaps find somewhere in the fire discussion to fit in quotes from:
PT, 10/31/1901 – “This section has been scourged with fires several times within the past two years where forest fires were never known before, the woods being too dense and damp to burn, but with the opening up of farms and the cutting of the timber the woods are becoming dry.” from article on a fire on Laurel Creek (of Williams River)
PT, 11/5/1931 – Forest fires burned 64,110 acres in the county, January 1922 to January 1931 – estimated timber damage, $135,984
PT, 10/15/1914 Lookout stations in Pocahontas County were on Marlin Mountain at Mt. View Orchard, Briery Knob, and Bald Knob. “The country covered by the Marlin Mountain lookout is the Greenbrier Valley from the Alleghany top to the top of the high dividing ridge between the Greenbrier, and Cheat, Elk, Williams and Cranberry, as far north as Cass and as far south as Spice Run.”
Shawkey, p 286, F&G C installed 34 steel fire towers “within past five years” – “put nearly one-half of the timber area of the State, which is seriously subject to forest fires, under the observation of the rangers who are on duty constantly during the dry weather periods of the year.”
Despite all the human tragedy associated with the Great Depression of the 1930s, it reduced the demand for timber and thus reduced the amount of cutting, giving forests the opportunity to recover from the over cutting of the previous half-century. Marginal farm land was abandoned as the nation slid into depression and allowed to return to timberland.
The Depression also produced also one of the most important conservation efforts in the nation’s history, the Civilian Conservation Corps. Within the geographic area covered by this writing a total of fourteen CCC camps were established. Some had a brief existence while others were open for almost the entire period of the CCC program. All did work in the areas of reforestation, forest fire control, development of parks —- that are still obvious today.25
In 1933 the W. Va. Legislature replaced the Forest, Game and Fish Commission with the Conservation Commission (now the Department of Natural Resources) — allow state to work with the CCC – This law also established the position of state forester — need law
At West Virginia University, the Chair of Forestry became the School of Forestry in 1935 — check details
The good work of natural forces, with the human assistance related above, have restored the forests to the mountains and bottom lands of the Greenbrier Valley and at first glance they would look very familiar to any early settler who might by some way be able to return to the valley. Obviously, the vast acres of cleared farmland would be different than the few small clearings found by the original settlers, but the forested mountains would seem the same. As was the case 300 years ago, there is a progression of tree species as altitude changes, with the spruce on the highest ridges.
However, differences would be quickly noticed by our reincarnated pioneer. Today’s forest of second and third growth trees would look much different than the mostly mature forest found by the early settlers. The proportion of the various species would be considerably different now, with some species found by the original settlers non-existent or greatly reduced in extent.
Some of the differences in today’s forest from the forest that existed 300 years ago are the natural changes that occur when forests regrow from a disturbance. At one time it was believed that the climax forest in a given area was permanent; following a destruction of a section of forest, the eventual mature forest would be the same as was there before. This has found not to be the case since it takes up to hundreds of years for a forest to become mature and conditions of climate and other factors affecting forests are not the same over time. Other changes from the forest the first Europeans found are more directly the result of human activity.
One difference is the acreages of white pine, red spruce, and hemlock are much reduced from the forest the first settlers found. Whether this is a temporary condition as the forests recover from the clear-cut logging operations and grow their way towards maturity (assuming we would let them do this) or a permanent change in our forests, only time will tell.
As the lumbering operations were just getting underway, nature was making changes in the forests. In the documents in a — court case was the following statement by Daniel O’Connell:
Respondent further states that whether it is generally known or not, it is a fact, that Pine timber in that section within the last two years has been seriously prayed upon by a insect styled amongst lumbermen as “the bug”.
Mr. Brewer, as the respondent is informed and believes, becoming uneasy lest some of his pine timber should be lost to him on account of this insect decided to cut some of the timber of that character standing upon these lands during the present [1893-94] logging season.26
The writer of a news item in January 1895 noted “Everything has combined against lumbering the past few years. Bugs destroyed the timber, the rains ceased, and the price has fallen.”27
“The bug” referred by O’Connell is the southern pine beetle (Dendroctonus frontalis). This insect is one of the most destructive insects of pines in the southern United States
Forestry Quarterly, Vol IX, 1911, No. 3, September 1911 – a news note on the southern pine beetle states “It appears, however, that only at long intervals does it increase to such numbers as to cause widespread depredations, such as, for example, the great invasion of 1890 – 1893 in the Virginias.”
CWP, PT, 12/19/1935, refers to the southern pine beetle taking out the yellow pine east of the GR "more than forty years ago" "I remember being taken to a high mountain to look out over the Greenbrier peniplain (sic) and to see vast stretches of country brown as a sheep skin form the dead pines. This tree was superceded (sic) by the oaks, soft maple, hickory, and where the ground was too thin for better species of trees, chinquepin oak and bull pine." At least the southern pine beetle is a natural part of the North American ecosystem and the native trees have evolved ways to survive attacks by it. Unfortunately, such is not the case with imported dangers to the forests, where the native tree species have no natural protection. One of the first things our returnee would probably notice is something that is not present in today’s forest - the magnificent American chestnut tree. Although to the settler most species were just trees that were in the way of establishing farms, the chestnut was a tree of great usefulness, both for its wood and its nuts that provided food for both man and animal. The absence of this tree is due to a natural cause, but it is humans and not nature that must take the blame. In the early 1900s, as the timbering in the valley was at its most intensive, the chestnut was under attack from a foreigner invader. Chinese chestnut trees imported from Asia for nursery stock brought with them a fungus that the native chestnut trees had no resistance to. In 1904 it was noticed that trees in the New York Zoological Park were dying. The spores of the fungus were carried by wind, bird, insects, and people throughout the tree’s range in the Appalachian Mountains. By 1910 American chestnut trees were dying across Pennsylvania and the blight was moving south at a rate of 50 miles a year. All efforts to stop the blight failed and by the 1950s the tree was virtually gone from Appalachian forests. There is some hope for the future of the American chestnut as a feature of the Appalachian forests. Even today chestnuts will grow from roots of long dead trees. However, before long the youthful chestnut succumb to the blight. But research efforts have been underway for a number of years to cross-breed with the blight resistant Chinese chestnut and eventually produce an American chestnut that is also blight resistant. Chestnut blight is itself merely the most dramatic symptom of epidemic in Appalachian forest, one that came in with the twentieth century but has hardly run its course. The globalization of the world’s economy is being accompanied by a less beneficial globalization of its ecology. International trade has opened the doors to some very undesirable immigrants. Brought in purposely for one reason or another, or unintentionally on lumber, furniture, exotic plants, and sundry other imports, more than a dozen introduced pests and diseases now assail Appalachia.28 Another example of an “on purpose” human decision that has resulted in a curse to our forests was bringing the gypsy moth, a native of Europe, to this country in -1869 -- 1868 -- in hopes of using it for silk production. Some escaped into the wild and trees began to die due to the defoliation caused by the gypsy moth caterpillars. From the initial defoliation in Massachusetts in 1889, the moth has moved its way south and west, reaching West Virginia in ----. Oak trees, valuable to both wildlife and timberman, have been particularly impacted by the gypsy moth. The moths are also partial to beech, pines, and hemlock. One author recently wrote that “if gypsy moths continue their recurrent pattern of eating all the oaks they can find, other species of trees will take over the dominance of the forests. That will mean fewer acorns, which now serve as the main substitute for chestnuts as wildlife food. The number of wild animals that Appalachian forests can support will take another sharp dip.”29 Fortunately, there is some good news with regard to this pest. A fungus from Japan has been found that attacks only the gypsy moth and has reduced the amount of acres defoliated by --- A pioneer returning to the valley a few years from now will probably find another of tree species common in his time, the hemlock, to be missing. Hemlock has made up a smaller percentage of second growth forest and now a tiny, less than 1/16th of an inch, Asian import, the hemlock woolly adelgid, is threatening to eliminate these magnificent trees from the forests of the eastern United States. It was first found found in 1951 in Richmond, Virginia, in a hemlock tree near Maymont Park. The park was originally a private estate and it is believed the insect may have come to this country with the establishment on the estate of a Japanese garden in 1911.30 There was no particular concern about this pest until the late 1980s when was found in a stand of hemlocks outside of the city. About the same time hemlocks were found to be invested with the woolly adelgid in Shenandoah National Park in Northern Virginia. By the mid-1990s most of hemlocks in the park were dead. The pest has been working its way north, west and south and is now found in sixteen states, covering about half the range of the two hemlock species in the east. In West Virginia, the insect has invaded almost half of the state’s counties. After being infected, a hemlock will die in about three years. There is a chemical treatment but it is expensive to apply and and repeated treatments are needed. Another disease caused by an import is white pine blister rust, caused by a fungus that came to --- The spruce budworm, coming from ----, attacks spruce, firs, tamarack, hemlocks, and pines. In recent decades even more horrors have come to the forests. These include: * Dogwood Anthracnose * Balsam Woolly Aphid * Adelges piceae * Dutch Bark Disease * Butternut Canker * Oak Wilt * Sudden Oak Death, Asian longhorn beetle, emerald ash borer
Sullivan, Rose, New Threats to Mountain State Trees Emerge, WV Wildlife Diversity News, WV DNR, Vol. 19 , No. 4, Winter 2003
Invasive plants impacting forests include: * autumn olive * multiflora rose * tree of heaven * barberry * crown vetch * garlic mustard * Asiatic bittersweet The fewer acres of white pine, spruce, and hemlock, mentioned before, would be a direct result of the lumbering operations. The white pine, the dominate species at lower elevations to the east of the river, now exists only in scattered stands. In its place today are ------- The fires that followed the logging were severe enough in some areas to burn away, not only the debris left behind by the loggers, but the soil itself, leaving only bedrock. Recovery of these areas is, of course, taking longer -- Air pollution has placed a strain on the acid rain - soil nutrient depletion Another environmental factor that is determining the future of our forests is climate change caused by global warming. While the argument goes on about about much of this is to be blamed on man’s activities (among politicians, not reputable scientists), the forests of the Greenbrier Valley, as elsewhere, are slowly changing under its impact. Dan Lewerenz, Associated Press, article in Charleston Gazette, 6/13/2003, "Oaks decline, maples move in", on decline of oaks, increase in maples. Reasons given are (1) fire suppression. Maples sensitive to fire and few used to survive ground fires - oaks use fire as part of natural regeneration. (2) decrease in soil quantity and quality. Soils washed away following clear cutting of 100 years ago and soil polluted by acid rain and stripped of important elements - maples more tolerant of acidic soils . (3) deer population increase. Deer would rather eat oak than maple. Another difference in today's forests as compared to what the original settlers found is in the areas where spruce timber is found. Although it hard to distinguish much of the trees today are Norway spruce rather than the native red spruce. This is another change based on decisions made by those concerned with the future of forests. Starting with Rothkugel, Norway spruce has been used for replanting areas where red spruce was the native tree -
need to find out how much Norway spruce seeding was done and how much of today’s spruce is red and how much Norway – need to confirm that Norway does a better job of surviving the conditions found in cut-over and often burned-over forest land as claimed in Carvel, “Arboreal Mysteries Unraveled”
But I should not end on a pessimistic note. Change is part of the natural scheme and will continue as long as this planet exists. How much the activities of humans have sped up and otherwise impacted this change is a matter of debate among scientists and politicians (more among the latter). Hopefully, before too many more years pass the so-called “intelligent” species will move from decision making based mostly on self-interest and short-term goals to more thoughts for the future of our fragile earth and the best-interest of our children and grandchildren. As for our forests, words written in a February 1, 1905, letter from Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson to Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot, are as true today as when written, “In the administration of the forest reserves it must be clearly borne in mind that all land is to be devoted to its most productive use of the permanent good of the whole people, and not for the temporary benefit of individuals or companies . . . “. . . where conflicting interests must be reconciled the question will always be decided from he standpoint of the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run.”31 Although, as related in the previous pages, the timbermen of the late 1800s and early 1900s did a very tho--- job of removing the trees from the Greenbrier Valley, virgin timber does exist in a few areas. The easiest to access is the Gaudineer Knob ----- . Here --- acres of timber were saved from the lumberman's axe and saw by ------ Baun refers to "A virgin forest area some three miles east of Linwood at the southern end of Back Allegheny Mountain (where it joins the southern end of Cheat Mountain) ...." p 82 Baun has photo on p 80 of virgin white oak near Anthonys Creek - Virginians for Wilderness website, http://asecular.com/forests/anthonycr.htm, Old Growth/Anthony Creek, locates what it thinks is on the east-facing slope just west of the North Fork
A. Price, PT, 12/28/1916, “A forest is a long time in growing, but they do grow.”
PT, 4/7/1927 article on the Upper Tract. “The Upper Tract has in it now the large and important town of Durbin, and one of the big tanneries of the country, but for the most part the land is regaining its wilderness estate, and soon it will be an ideal retreat for the lovers of nature, who will find all the delights of the forest and stream. Time will heal the hurts made by the timber operations, and the experts of the National Forest aid materially in its rejuvenation.”

Although this book is not intended to be a social history of this part of West Virginia, the author feels it would be irresponsible not to comment on some of the recent writings and books about the impact on the development of the natural resources of West Virginia has had on the people of the state and its environment. The usual theme of these books and articles is that it was a disaster, leaving behind an exploited and dispirited people, unable to cope with modern life and a ruined landscape. This analysis has been extended to all regions of the state and all resources, including the timbering in the Greenbrier Valley. Some of these writings, quite frankly, contain historical mistakes about the Greenbrier Valley which show a lack of historical research (or an interpretation of research to meet pre-conceived conclusions). Much of what the writers have said about the impact of development and the actions of developers (past and present) is true, but much is also total imagination. For the coal producing regions of West Virginia, much of what is written about the impacts of development on the land and people is, unfortunately true. However, the Greenbrier Valley and other parts of eastern West Virginia --- There is no argument that the timbering that took place from the late 1800s to about 1930 had major environmental impacts. This has been a major theme in this chapter. It is in discussing the impact on the people and society of the valley that recent authors have gone greatly off base. What is forgotten by these writers is that the valley had a long-established, viable economic base and settled population, based on agriculture, prior to the timber development, unlike much of the coal producing regions of the state, where the coal development was the first and virtually only aspect of the economy. The people of the Greenbrier Valley were not the stereotype “hillbillies” of books, movies, and recent social studies of the Appalachian Mountain states, but as educated -- as any -- In Pocahontas County, for example, three, not one, but three, preparatory schools for the University of Virginia were established in the 1840s. As related in Chapter I, by the time of the Civil War, a series of turnpikes connected the valley with the rest of Virginia. Lewisburg was an educational center The land purchased by the lumber companies was of little value to the agricultural based economy of the Greenbrier Valley. (References to the cost of removing timber to convert land to farm use were made in Chapter I.) The companies did not purchase land being used for agriculture (why would they?), except for sites along the railroad needed for the mills and mill towns. Generally most of these sites went back to agricultural use after the mills closed and remain so today. Did the local landowners get as much as they should have for their timber and timber land? Perhaps not, but this is a question that cannot be answered with certainty now. Getting any income from land that was useless for your main economic activity can only be considered a positive. (Considering the number of lumber company bankruptcies, some folks may have gotten too much for their timber.) The major tracts of land acquired for the lumber companies were not stolen from a group of illiterate farmers. Most of the timber acreage had been in the hands of speculators from “day one” and passed from one group to another over the years. The needs of the lumber companies for food provided a new market for the farmers in the valley and the C&O provided easier access to distant markets. The jobs and business opportunities provided by the timbering operations allowed at least one or two generations of their sons and daughters to remain at home rather than having to leave the area to find employment. As has been recounted before, the timber cutting had negative impacts on the land and forests and there were certainly social impacts from the influx of people, some from other countries, that came with the railroad and timber development. But in terms of history this timber “boom” period was too short, only about sixty years, to radically change either the long-established economic or social situation in the Greenbrier Valley. (The major timbering was completed in less than thirty years.) As for the coming of people from other enthic groups to the valley during the timbering era, in the author’s opinion, at least, it is a shame that some of these new residents were not able to remain in order to provide a more diverse population today. Once the timber was cut, the departing timber companies and their employees did not leave behind an improvished population with no other way of making a living. Obviously, the economic boost provided by the mills was missed by many, but the agricultural base remained, as well as the railroad connecting the valley to the nation and various other improvements that had been put in place during the timbering period. Remaining from the boom timbering period were the two tanneries, the continuing lumber operation at Cass, and other smaller lumbering operations, which --- As the nation went into the Great Depression it may have been just as well for the people of the valley that the timber boom was over; the economic conditions of the 1930s would have brought it to a sudden halt. As it was the boom peaked before 1920 and the valley had been adjusting to The fact that today agriculture can support only a small part of the Greenbrier Valley‘s population has no connection with the timber development. Many other economic factors, both national and international, have brought about the major decrease in the number of people employed in farming. For this part of the state, it has even been suggested that the change of ownership from the lumber companies to the federal government for the Monongahela National Forest is a continuation of some type of evil land ownership by outside interests. This was certainly not the opinion of those alive at the time the cut-over land was being purchased by the federal government. Today, even though memories of the conditions of our forest land following timbering are almost gone, most people will probably agree that the existence of the Monongahela National Forest is a positive for the valley. Though it is true that the federal land might be considered to be owned “from afar,” the owners also include all of us who live in the valley. The land in the MNF is ours and open to all, a considerable difference from the company-owned land in much of the state, with the all too common “no trespassing” signs. Accusations that lumber companies were able to avoid the liability for the environmental impact they had on the land and then make a final profit by selling their cut-over land to the federal government is using a present-day attitude about corporate responsibility that generally did not exist at the time. Besides, we are far from prefect today in making corporations take responsibility for their
The Greenbrier Wilderness
E. D. Coontz
The miles of torn and wasted wood,
Where once a giant forest stood;
—– so dense with laurel and spruce
That the sun could seldom find excuse
To pierce these depths of woodland shade,
—- this wondrous woodland glad
Among deep-rooted trees of earth,
And Greenbrier’s soul was given birth
The waters pure and crystal clear,
With springs that burst from every where
But, there came that day of sacrifice
For this nature’s wooded paradise:
When man had laid his strings of steel,
That power the woodland soon must feel,
With ax and saw men followed fast,
To strip these hills of forests vast;
The few that failed to feel the stroke,
Beneath the hand of fire were broke,
The ghosts of trees stand here and there,
–rch by flame with branches bare.
What means that pile of rusted steel
That brush and bramble half conceal
What is that twisted coil of wire,
Half hidden in the boggish mire?
That crumbling pile of brick you see
Shows where the great boilers used to be
The pond – now home for croaking frogs,
Once covered by a thousand logs,
That grassy plot by yonder wood,
Shows where the horse’s stable stood
And just another ghastly scene,
That broken bridge ‘cross yonder stream
That tangled trail up yonder glen,
Was once the path of horse and men
Out here among the mossy stones,
We view a pile of bleaching bones,
A broken horse perhaps was shot,
His carcass left out here to rot,
Here two stones that mark a tomb,
Where some lone woods man met his doom,
A lonely grave o’er grown with grass
Is seen by few who daily pass.
Beneath the old abandoned grade,
The wood chuck burrows unafraid,
For nothing now disturbs his rest,
His domain here by far the best.
Out from a nook of sheltered shade,
The ruffed grouse struts all unafraid,
An eagle soars on dizzy heights
And owl voices stir upon the nights,
Ravens are talking on the hills,
Their voices mingling with the rills.
The mountains wrapped in slumber deep,
Silent rocks you soul to sleep,
Out here beneath the silent stars,
Now still – no hum of motor cars
What rest tired hearts so seldom meet,
No tramp of men on brick-paved street,
No rumbling of a noisy train,
To shake your nerves or wrack your brain.
The years have sped, the mills have died,
But they left their scars on every side,
A waste of briars and tangled vine,
Where once had stood the stately pine
Around yon green and grassy clump
The remnant of the rotting stump
Where nature once held regal sways
The herds man’s sheep come now to graze.
The camp with all its life is gone,
Some rotting boards are left alone,
Where voices rang now all is still,
For silent stands the noisy mill.
The woods-man’s voices all are dead,
Along the path where sportsmen tread.32 and completed by thLess than a human lifetime was all the time it took; starting in the early 1870s and completed by the early 1930s. In that period the pre-European settlement timber in the Upper Greenbrier Valley had been cut, almost down to every single tree. By the late 1800s and early 1900s the technology available to the lumber industry had made it very efficient in the removal of timber on a large scale. What was true in the Greenbrier Valley was also true in most of eastern West Virginia and much of the rest of the state during the same period. The state’s magnificent forests had been turned into boards, flooring, lath, pulpwood, tan bark, barrel staves, ship pins, shingles, utility poles, and forest floor litter well before nascent efforts to protect some of the nation’s pre-European settlement forests and introduce sustainable forestry practices had a foothold in this state.
The attitude of many towards the forest was that the timber supply was endless. In his 1911 book, Forestry and Wood Industries, published by the West Virginia Geological Survey, Alonzo B. Brooks summarized this feeling:
The need of preserving the forests of this country was not apparent to many persons 200 years ago. The pioneer settlers of our Eastern states built their homes in what they considered an almost boundless wilderness. Trees were regarded by them, naturally, as obstacles in the way of improvement, for they were removed with great labor and could not be sold or given away. The openings first made were insignificant in comparison with the vast woodlands which surrounded them. But this was not long the case. As the population increased and settlements were extended from year to year, the small cornfields were widened into extensive farms; fires began to take their toll from the forests in the region of settlements; and the occupation of lumbering began. In the course of time the various agents of destruction, working together, produced a serious condition in the forests. The condition was not readily observed because the people had not been trained to expect trouble from such a source. The conception that the forest was boundless and inexhaustible had been transmitted from one generation to another until it had become fixed in the minds of the inhabitants as a firm belief. With this inherited handicap, therefore, the present generations were slow in believing even what reason taught them was true.1
Brooks noted that West Virginia originally was almost unbroken forest covering more than 15.5 million acres and containing 150 billion feet of timber. At the time he was writing 60% of the state was still timbered. However, in 1910 there were 83 large band and about 900 portable sawmills operating with the capacity to cut all the timber in the state in the next 16 years. He predicted that by 1940 none of the band mills would be in operation due to the depletion of the timber.2
The lumber companies working in the Greenbrier Valley certainly seem to have operated under this belief of unlimited timber supply. Most came to West Virginia following the depletion of timber in other states and probably assumed they could move on to other areas after this state was cut over.
Arthur H. Winchester, who was an investor in West Virginia timber lands in the late 1800s (including the Cheat Mountain land that he purchased for Dewing and Sons that was later purchased by the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company), is reported to have stated in a hearing before the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representative in 1897 “We [West Virginia] don’t need scientific forestry down our way. The growth of our timber is so rapid that the forests restore themselves without artificial help as fast as they can be cut away.” What Winchester was claiming the state’s timber industry did need was the imposition of tariffs to protect it from cheaper lumber being imported from Canada.3
At least partially due to this attitude, during the period when the pre-settlement timber was being stripped from the mountainsides and valley land in the Upper Greenbrier Valley very little was done in the way of reforestation. The brief employment by the George Craig and Sons Lumber Company of a trained forester was related in the article on that company (see Winterburn, Chapter X). There are a few references to the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company making an effort to replant the area the company logged. One was in a news article at the time of absorption of the West Virginia Spruce Lumber Company into the parent company in 1909. The article included:
Another interesting feature of their operations has been the adoption of scientific forestry methods in their lumbering, which, according to their experience to date, assures them practically an inexhaustible supply of timber on their present holdings
Only the right timber has been logged, they are constantly replanting, and today they have 25,000 acres which has been logged over which is coming, both from seedling and young timber growth, to a condition which will permit of most profitable logging thereon again before they have anywhere near logged their entire premises.4
An article on the lumber operation at Cass in the American Lumberman in 1911 made a brief reference to replanting by W. Va. Pulp and Paper. Following comments on the company’s efforts to control fire, the article continues: “Only about 1500 of its 25,000 acres of the company’s cut over lands have been burned over and these are being carefully replanted, as are other areas where the young timber left is not sufficient to provide a heavy future growth. In replanting, the men pick up the small spruce which are to be found in abundance among the older timber and these are put into ground within twenty-four hours.”5
WVP&P wrote to Brooks in 1910 and reported the company had planted 25,000 spruce trees in 1909, with about 80% growing a year later, and 170,000 spruce and 2000 yellow poplars in 1910. In the letter the company expressed it great interest “in the reproduction of forests on our property and it is our present intention to do everything in our power in the future to save and propagate the timber.” The letter stated that timber under about ten inches was being left. “We confidently believe that if the fire can be kept out of the old slashing that our property will reproduce itself rapidly and that by the time we have lumbered over it, it will be possible to go over it again, and while of course we will not be able to secure the quantity of large lumber, we can make the crops perpetual for pulp.”6
However, other than these limited efforts – and WVP&P seems to have discontinued its reforestation program after a few years – the companies cutting the Greenbrier Valley timber did it with no particular thought to the future.
But, as always in judging the actions of those who came before us, we must be careful not to use the standards and knowledge of our time. Particularly, since in many parts of the world, including parts of environmentally “enlightened” North America, the forests are continued to be attacked as if they go on forever. Our ancestors could only see unending forests as they climbed to the top of each mountain – today we can see the entire earth virtually at once from space. Yet, we are generally behaving as a lumber company of 1900 without the excuse of limited vision. Our approach today to other natural resources, particularly oil and natural gas, is not much different. As the 21st Century gets underway we still seem to operate mainly on the belief that these resources are infinite.
The generation that is using “mountain top removal” for the production of coal is not exactly in a position to criticize those who clear cut the timber of our West Virginia mountains. The trees have regrown; the mountains will not. True, acres of ugliness did follow the timbering. Clear cut sites are not pretty and fires followed the logging in many areas, burning the left behind debris and in places burning off the eons-old accumulation of humus down to bare rock. But trees have regrown and even the areas of the worse fires are slowly healing. The ugliness and waste of mountain top removal will remain with us and the generations to come, forever.
Attitude was not the only reason for the “clear cut” timbering that was done; economics played a major role. Even lumbermen who may have had the foresight to realize that the amount of timber was finite were confined by the economics of the business. The average company held a relatively small amount of timber and reaching it required for most the major cost of building a railroad. There was no way a company could regain its expenses and pay its debts if it built a railroad some distance into a section of its holdings, take only part of the timber, and then remove the track, planning to relay it back a number of years later to take some additional timber. The only way to make money on the investment of money for timber, equipment, and railroad construction was to take it all. Only a few companies owned large enough amounts of timber land to be able to look forward to a return to the cut-over portion of their holdings.
In his 1908 article on forest land management in West Virginia, Max Rothkugel recommended the use of portable mills, 15,000 to 20,000 feet per day capacity, rather than large capacity mills, of up to 100,000 capacity. “Big mills with their large investment in equipment and in rails must disappear before management of the present stands can be practiced. With a comparatively small investment tied up in mills and railroads the forest can be constantly maintained in a productive condition and still a good interest percent on the original investment would be assured.”7
In the Upper Greenbrier Valley, the only companies with large enough land holdings to consider being able to recut their own land were St. Lawrence Boom and Manufacturing/Sherwood Companies, Greenbrier River Lumber Company, and West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company. There is no evidence that SLB&M/Sherwood ever made any effort in reforestation. GRLCo was mainly a land holding company for John McGraw and, other than the small amount cut in the early 1900s, sold its property to other lumber companies.
As noted before there are a few references to reforestation by WVP&P in early years. One of these is in the 1911 book, Forestry and Wood Industries. Under the Randolph County section, there is statement: “It is gratifying to note that at least one lumber company – the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company – is making extensive plantations of spruce trees on its cut-over lands near the head of Shavers Fork of Cheat river.” However, no evidence exists that the effort continued on a long-term basis. Mower Lumber did cut second growth timber on its former WVP&P land, but this was due to the efforts of Mother Nature and not planned reforestation.8
As early as the mid-1890s the logging had been going on for a sufficient length of time that the change it created in the landscape was becoming obvious. In early 1897 the Times made the following observation:
The disappearance of the logs and timbermen have made a great change in the appearance of things between Marlinton and Driscol. Our old acquaintances, the logs, will hardly be recognizable when they return in a year or two as furniture, goods-boxes and picture frames. It makes a great difference with logs, as well as boys, to go abroad, remain awhile and then come back to serve some useful or ornamental purpose.9
However, there were voices during the boom period expressing regret about the destruction of the area’s forests and concern about the future timber supply.
In 1898, even before the major logging had begun in the Greenbrier Valley, the West Virginia Board of Agriculture declared “Owing to the rapid destruction of our forests it is high time that something be done looking toward the preservation and protection of our timber land.”10
In a 1903 article on the operations of WVP&P on Cheat Mountain, Marlinton resident Norman Price commented, “It is a pity that the government did not set aside the forests about the headwaters of our rivers as a forest reserve.” However, he followed that sentence with “However the sacrifice of the trees has brought capital to be invested in the county, and therewith we must rest content.”11
On December 5, 1906, a traveling salesman of Sure Shot tobacco by the name of Ignatius Brennen sat on the end of a crosstie at Stony Bottom and wrote the following poem, presumably to his wife or girlfriend.
“In the Greenbrier Mountains”
With a pad on my knee, dear,
I’m penning to thee dear,
A line of myself emblamatic,
Through not sentimental,
Nor yet Continental,
But very much straight Democratic.
In the Greenbrier Mountains,
Where natural fountains,
Have slacked the wild deer of its thirsting,
I’m plying my trading,
And green haunts invading,
And quaffing from water to bursting.
When God made this Creation,
His intention, I’d reckon,
Was a home for the wild beasts and savage,
But the white man came onward,
Moonward and sunward,
Its fine virgin forests to ravage.
The forests depleted,
The rape is completed,
What nature held sacred has vanished,
The fawn and its mother,
And lo-the poor Indian, are banished.
The fir and the pine tree,
The hemlock and vine-tree,
Exchanges of sorrow are granting,
The fire-ravished hill-side,
The snake haunted rill-side,
Inanimate requiems are chanting.
The Greenbrier River,
Rolls on with a quiver,
Polluted with chemical lotion,
It hastes to connection,
In southwest direction,
Contented when lost in the ocean.
I turn back the pages,
And stop with the ages,
When nature was absolute master,
Then picture the white man,
(Lets hope he’s a right man),
Who wrough all this awful disaster.12
The author would love to know what brought about this outburst from Mr. Brennen (an early environmentalist?). Perhaps "chemical lotion" referred to some discharge from the tannery at Frank? It would seem something more likely to be written about twenty years later; in 1906 the stripping of the mountainsides of timber had only begun. In an article written after logging was underway on the North Fork of the Cherry River, W. C. Dodrill described the impact on that watershed and compared it with the adjoining Cranberry River. An object lesson in the changed conditions brought about by cutting away the timber may be seen along the divide between Cherry and Cranberry. On the Cherry side all the timber in some place has been cut down except the birch that is not of the best quality and a few, very few, other species that are worthless for lumber. Worthless and broken logs strew the ground. Tramway roads leading to the tops of the hills are found at short intervals. Each rain cuts these deeper and washes away the humus that is so essential to plant life. Nothing remains to remind one of the greatness of this beautiful old forest but the decaying stumps. By counting the ring growths of some of the black spruce stumps it was found that the tree had been nourished by the rains of more than 500 summers and had defied the storms of as many winters. In this region destruction and desolation is depicted everywhere. But what are the conditions existing on the other side of the divided where the woodman's axe has been withheld! The forest admirer may wander for days among the grand old trees that have stood for centuries. The ground is covered with a soft carpet of moss and decaying leaves. The water that falls in the form of rain or snow gradually sinks into the ground. What is not utilized by the trees seeks a lower level by a slow process. Dodrill made note of the difference in water runoff between the two areas, with the Cherry nearly always muddy and the Cranberry nearly always clear; greater floods in the former and fewer in the later; also, more water in the Cranberry than the Cherry than the time of drought. In noting that "Water supply is as much a question in the conservation of the forests as the timber supply. One in a measure depends upon the other." Dodrill was giving one of the arguments that lead to the creation of eastern national forests. He also noted the lesser number of birds found on the Cherry since lumber operations began. Within two years. timbering is to begin on the Cranberry, Dodrill wrote, "When this occurs one of the most beautiful and picturesque mountain streams in the Appalachian region will be robbed of its greatest glory . . . "13 A 1912 article in the Times with the title "Timber," it was noted that timber production was already more that thought possible and there was still a lot to be cut: The lumberman have already taken from this county threes times as much timber as the highest guess ever made at it prior to the building of the railroad. Three hundred million a year for the past ten years is a low estimate and three billion feet of lumber has been shipped from the mills and great areas of timber are not touched yet. About one third of the timber has been cut is one guess at the present situation, though that runs the amount of timber to fabulous figures. Just when the timber of this county will give out is a hazy and uncertain period, and the subject is not a welcome one.14 At the time the timbering that would strip the Upper Greenbrier Valley of its trees was getting underway, there were the beginnings of national concern about the massive cutting of the nation's forests. It was probably the removal of forests to provide land for agriculture that began the first concerns about whether the wanton destruction of forest land was a good thing. It was "agriculturalists who saw and appreciated what clearing could do to the land itself, to the soil, the stream flow, the microclimate, and the fish and animal life." As early as 1818 former President James Madison noted that all of the errors in the rural economy of the United States "none is so much to be regretted, perhaps because none is so difficult to repair, as the injurious and excessive destruction of timber and firewood."15 Madison was early in his concern about forest removal, but by the latter part of the Nineteenth Century there were a number of people expressing concern over the destruction of the forests, both for farms and lumber. One of the first given credit for bringing attention to the rapid deforestation and it impacts was George Perkins Marsh with his book Man and Nature, published in 1864. This is a remarkable book, considered by some to be the beginning of the modern environmental movement. One of the most influencial books of its time, second perhaps only to one published five year's earlier, Darwin's Origin of Species. The brief amount of space the author can give to Man and Nature in this writing cannot begin to ----- If one did not know the date it was published, the insight Marsh shows into environmental problems caused by our misuse of our resources reads like the date was 1964 rather than 100 years earlier. Marsh was born in 1901 in the Green Mountains of Vermont, at Woodstock, at the time when the mountains were truly green. He Spending five years in Turkey as -- and then the last 21 years of his life as ambassador to Italy gave Marsh a close look how George Marsh delivered an address before the Agricultural Society of Rutland County, Vermont, on - - - -- - in 1847. Marsh had worn many hats over his lifetime: lawyer, journalist, sheep farmer, mill owner, linguistics scholar, and diplomat. He designed the Washington Monument and co-founded the Smithsonian Institution. But it was in his role as United States senator that he addressed the Agricultural Society. He was the first person to publicly raise the issue of manmade climate change, and his speech helped spark the conservation movement. In his speech, Marsh said: "Man cannot at his pleasure command the rain and the sunshine, the wind and frost and snow, yet it is certain that climate itself has in many instances been gradually changed and ameliorated or deteriorated by human action. The draining of swamps and the clearing of forests perceptibly effect the evaporation from the earth [...] The same causes modify the electrical condition of the atmosphere and the power of the surface to reflect, absorb and radiate the rays of the sun, and consequently influence the distribution of light and heat, and the force and direction of the winds. Within narrow limits too, domestic fires and artificial structures create and diffuse increased warmth, to an extent that may effect vegetation." He was talking about concepts familiar to us now as the urban heat island effect and the greenhouse effect. As a result of his speech, Marsh went on to publish a book titled Man and Nature: or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action (1864). "[M]an is everywhere a disturbing agent," Marsh wrote. "Wherever he plants his foot, the harmonies of nature are turned to discords. The proportions and accommodations which insured the stability of existing arrangements are overthrown. Indigenous vegetable and animal species are extirpated, and supplanted by others of foreign origin, spontaneous production is forbidden or restricted, and the face of the earth is either laid bare or covered with a new and reluctant growth of vegetable forms, and with alien tribes of animal life. Marsh's book was used by those with a growing realization of the for government owned forest reserves to support their case. These efforts resulted in the first national forests being established in the 1890s. These actions followed the passage of the Forest Reserve Act in 1891 authorizing the president to set aside forest reserves from the public domain. At first these lands were managed by the Department of the Interior. Also in 1891, a Division of Forestry was created within the Department of Agriculture. In 1905 the Forestry Bureau was renamed the Forest Service and the forest reserves came under its jurisdiction. Clifford Pinchot was the first head of the USFS. Moving to the state level, in the early 1900s some actions were beginning for the protection of the state’s forest lands. In 1906, a pamphlet entitled The Needs of Forest Protection in West Virginia and Suggestions for a Forest Law was published by Hu Maxwell. He noted the value of the state’s forests for timber and influence on erosion and water flow, their destruction by fire and careless lumbering, and lack of action to prevent waste. However, the law proposed in the pamphlet was considered in the 1907 Legislature but failed to pass.16 Governor William Dawson appointed a three-member Conservation Commission in 1908, with Maxwell as one of the members. The Commission’s report, published in the fall of that year, devoted a major part to a discussion of the forest resources of the state and made recommendations for policies to protect these resources.17 also in 1908? West Virginia University established a Chair of Forestry as a department in its College of Agriculture and selected A. W. Nolan as the school’s first professor of forestry - Brooks, p 361-2 The West Virginia Forestry Association was organized at a meeting in January 1908 at WVU by representatives from 23 counties of the state Brooks p 362 PT, 3/12/1908 - meeting was on Jan. 24, reference in the article to the new department of forestry at WVU, Prof. A. W. Nolan, professor in charge of the new department, elected secretary of the WVFA - objects of the new group included: conservation of forest resources of the state; bring about better state laws for conserving and utilizing forests; take steps to reforesting denuded lands and exempting of woodlands from taxation; encourage tree planting; educate youth to appreciate the economic as well as esthetic value of trees In Forestry Quarterly, Vol. VI, p 329, from Southern Lumberman, 2/15/1908, W. Va. has
added a forestry school the state university
a state forestry association has been formed
State Board of Trade has appointed a committee to draft forest laws and police for the Legislature at its next session
In the early 1900s, just as the timbering boom in the Greenbrier Valley was getting up a full head of steam, The Pocahontas Times printed two articles which warned of the rate at which the nation was cutting its timber resource.
The first was in 1907 with the reprint of an article by an U. S. Department of Agriculture forester, Overton W. Price. Price began his article by noting that the lumber industry in the United States ranked fourth among the manufacturing industries of the country, producing products with an annual value of $566,090,000 and providing employment for considerably more than a million people. He noted rapid improvements in tools and machinery that had taken place in the industry in the previous fifty years. “In effective methods for the harvesting and manufacturing of lumber, the American lumberman has no superior, . . .”
However, Price quickly got to the main point of his article which was that the rapid development of the industry “has been fundamentally unsound in principle” and was heading for failure due to the rate at which it was depleting the resource upon which it depended. “The havoc which has been wrought in the forest of the United States has turned trees into money, but the balance on the wrong side of the sheet by rendering vast areas unproductive.” The sentence quoted in the last paragraph concluded “nor is he equaled in his disregard for the future of the forest which he cuts.” Price noted that although with the data then available “there is no way to foretell accurately the time necessary to exhaust this supply of merchantable timber,” he supports his argument about the dangers to the future of the lumber industry by noting that already were the supplies of timber of some species were failing and some almost exhausted. He gave as examples black walnut, white pine (“growing rapidly to be a rarity on the market”) and spruce for pulpwood. The list of species once considered valueless were being harvested more and being accepted as merchantable due to the exhaustion of more valuable kinds, Price wrote.
“It is natural that the lumberman should not turn eagerly from a system whose only aim is to secure the highest possible present profit from the forest to one which includes provisions for the production of a second crop from the lumbered area,” Price stated. However, he wrote that the time for “practical forestry has fully arrived.”18
The second article in the paper was excerpts from a 1909 report issued by the U. S. Forest Service, “The Timber Supply of the United States,” that claimed that the nation was cutting its forests faster than the annual growth. The report stated the nation was cutting its forests three times as fast as new timber was growing. “There is menace in the continuance of such conditions. While we might never reach absolute timber exhaustion, the unrestricted exploitation of our forests in the past has already had serious effects and it will have worse if it is allowed to continue unchecked.” White pine was used as one of the examples in the report. “White pine, for instance, which was once considered inexhausible, has fallen off seventy per cent in cut since 1890, and more than forty-five per cent since 1900.”
The report noted “The fact that timber has been cheap and abundant has made us careless of its production and reckless in its use.” It went on to give the example of Germany which was managing its forests so that wood growth exceeded timber production. “But to reach the necessary condition of equilibrium between timber production and consumption will take many years of vigorous effort by individual forest owners, by the States, and by the National Government. None of them can solve the problem alone; all must work together.”19
The office of Forest, Game, and Fish Warden was created by the Legislature in 1909, to replace the existing Fish and Game Warden position. J. A. Viquesney was appointed to the new position. The 1909 law also called for forest protection and research and provided for punishment of individuals and company owners who intentionally or carelessly set forest fires.20
In his 1911 book, Brooks surveyed what other states were doing to protect their forests and made a number of recommendations. The first was for the appointment of a state forester with duties in the areas of education, advice to private land owners, forest fire control, collection of data on forest and forest industries, and determining whether state-owned lands should be retained for forestry purposes. To encourage tree planting he recommended a law that would exempt from taxes for a period of years land that is planted to carefully prepared specifications or provide for a scale of rebates on such lands. Also recommended was for the state to agree to the acquisition of land by the federal government for a national forest.21
In an article in American Forestry magazine in 1913, Merritt Wilson, a West Virginia lumberman, wrote that unless the effort is made “to protect the growing timber and reforest the cutover lands of West Virginia that the lumber industry, one of the leading industries of our state, will soon be almost a thing of the past. The uncut area is getting smaller every year and it would seem that the only way to have a supply for the future is to grow it.” He noted that this state is “perhaps as well adapted to growing timber as any State east of the Mississippi river, unless it is Maine, and while it is well adapted to growing timber, much of the area is of little value for anything else, owing to the rough and mountainous character of the country.” Later in his article, Wilson gave his estimate of 12,000 square miles of the state “better adapted for growing timber than anything else.”
Wilson recommended the creation of a state Forestry Commission with the power to buy cut-over lands. Like Brooks, he also recommended using the tax laws to encourage the setting aside of land for reforestation.
He stressed that fire was the greatest threat to growing new forests. He noted that the cause of most forest fires were sparks from railroad and logging company locomotives and fires set by farmers to make more range for livestock, as well fires set by those who just want to see the woods burn. Lack of care by the railroad companies came under particular criticism from Wilson. “It is our opinion that companies and individuals carelessly letting fires get started should be made to pay damages for any timber and other property destroyed.”22
At the national level forested lands were being protected in the growing national forest system. However, all the first national forests had to be located in the west, as that is where the federal government owned land. The government had no authority to purchase private land for preserves. Following the establishment of the national forests in the west, efforts began to have legislation passed to allow the establishment of federal forest reserves in the Appalachians. Those in favor stressed the importance of forests in preventing flooding and siltation and regulation of stream flow. Following bad flooding in 1907 with millions of dollars of damages along the Monongahela and Ohio Rivers, the role of the cutover mountains in the headwaters in making the situation worse became obvious. Finally in 1911 Congress passed the Weeks Act which authorized the federal purchase of forests to protect the headwaters of navigable streams.
The first purchase within West Virginia for national forest purpose was in Tucker County in 1915. In 1920 the Monongahela purchase area was proclaimed as the Monongahela National Forest. The first property purchased for the MNF in the Greenbrier Valley was from the George Craig and Sons Lumber Company in April 1923. The tract contained 9,674 acres on — 23
The State of West Virginia was also taking additional action to protect the state’s forest lands. In 1921 the West Virginia Game and Fish Commission was created for the purpose of — need copy of law
The first tracts purchased by the Commission were in the Greenbrier Valley. In January 1924 A. D. Neill sold 10,847 acres to the Commission and a year later 4,546 acres were purchased from the Watoga Land Association. Today the former tract makes up most of Seneca State Forest and the other about half of Watoga State Park.24
As related in the articles on the individual lumber companies, most of their lands went into government ownership after being cut. In 2011 the Monongahela National Forest owns —- acres in Greenbrier and Pocahontas Counties and state parks and forests make up another —- acres of mostly former lumber company land.
The Fish and Game Commission also had responsibilities for a forest fire protection system.
Perhaps find somewhere in the fire discussion to fit in quotes from:
PT, 10/31/1901 – “This section has been scourged with fires several times within the past two years where forest fires were never known before, the woods being too dense and damp to burn, but with the opening up of farms and the cutting of the timber the woods are becoming dry.” from article on a fire on Laurel Creek (of Williams River)
PT, 11/5/1931 – Forest fires burned 64,110 acres in the county, January 1922 to January 1931 – estimated timber damage, $135,984
PT, 10/15/1914 Lookout stations in Pocahontas County were on Marlin Mountain at Mt. View Orchard, Briery Knob, and Bald Knob. “The country covered by the Marlin Mountain lookout is the Greenbrier Valley from the Alleghany top to the top of the high dividing ridge between the Greenbrier, and Cheat, Elk, Williams and Cranberry, as far north as Cass and as far south as Spice Run.”
Shawkey, p 286, F&G C installed 34 steel fire towers “within past five years” – “put nearly one-half of the timber area of the State, which is seriously subject to forest fires, under the observation of the rangers who are on duty constantly during the dry weather periods of the year.”
Despite all the human tragedy associated with the Great Depression of the 1930s, it reduced the demand for timber and thus reduced the amount of cutting, giving forests the opportunity to recover from the over cutting of the previous half-century. Marginal farm land was abandoned as the nation slid into depression and allowed to return to timberland.
The Depression also produced also one of the most important conservation efforts in the nation’s history, the Civilian Conservation Corps. Within the geographic area covered by this writing a total of fourteen CCC camps were established. Some had a brief existence while others were open for almost the entire period of the CCC program. All did work in the areas of reforestation, forest fire control, development of parks —- that are still obvious today.25
In 1933 the W. Va. Legislature replaced the Forest, Game and Fish Commission with the Conservation Commission (now the Department of Natural Resources) — allow state to work with the CCC – This law also established the position of state forester — need law
At West Virginia University, the Chair of Forestry became the School of Forestry in 1935 — check details
The good work of natural forces, with the human assistance related above, have restored the forests to the mountains and bottom lands of the Greenbrier Valley and at first glance they would look very familiar to any early settler who might by some way be able to return to the valley. Obviously, the vast acres of cleared farmland would be different than the few small clearings found by the original settlers, but the forested mountains would seem the same. As was the case 300 years ago, there is a progression of tree species as altitude changes, with the spruce on the highest ridges.
However, differences would be quickly noticed by our reincarnated pioneer. Today’s forest of second and third growth trees would look much different than the mostly mature forest found by the early settlers. The proportion of the various species would be considerably different now, with some species found by the original settlers non-existent or greatly reduced in extent.
Some of the differences in today’s forest from the forest that existed 300 years ago are the natural changes that occur when forests regrow from a disturbance. At one time it was believed that the climax forest in a given area was permanent; following a destruction of a section of forest, the eventual mature forest would be the same as was there before. This has found not to be the case since it takes up to hundreds of years for a forest to become mature and conditions of climate and other factors affecting forests are not the same over time. Other changes from the forest the first Europeans found are more directly the result of human activity.
One difference is the acreages of white pine, red spruce, and hemlock are much reduced from the forest the first settlers found. Whether this is a temporary condition as the forests recover from the clear-cut logging operations and grow their way towards maturity (assuming we would let them do this) or a permanent change in our forests, only time will tell.
As the lumbering operations were just getting underway, nature was making changes in the forests. In the documents in a — court case was the following statement by Daniel O’Connell:
Respondent further states that whether it is generally known or not, it is a fact, that Pine timber in that section within the last two years has been seriously prayed upon by a insect styled amongst lumbermen as “the bug”.
Mr. Brewer, as the respondent is informed and believes, becoming uneasy lest some of his pine timber should be lost to him on account of this insect decided to cut some of the timber of that character standing upon these lands during the present [1893-94] logging season.26
The writer of a news item in January 1895 noted “Everything has combined against lumbering the past few years. Bugs destroyed the timber, the rains ceased, and the price has fallen.”27
“The bug” referred by O’Connell is the southern pine beetle (Dendroctonus frontalis). This insect is one of the most destructive insects of pines in the southern United States
Forestry Quarterly, Vol IX, 1911, No. 3, September 1911 – a news note on the southern pine beetle states “It appears, however, that only at long intervals does it increase to such numbers as to cause widespread depredations, such as, for example, the great invasion of 1890 – 1893 in the Virginias.”
CWP, PT, 12/19/1935, refers to the southern pine beetle taking out the yellow pine east of the GR "more than forty years ago" "I remember being taken to a high mountain to look out over the Greenbrier peniplain (sic) and to see vast stretches of country brown as a sheep skin form the dead pines. This tree was superceded (sic) by the oaks, soft maple, hickory, and where the ground was too thin for better species of trees, chinquepin oak and bull pine." At least the southern pine beetle is a natural part of the North American ecosystem and the native trees have evolved ways to survive attacks by it. Unfortunately, such is not the case with imported dangers to the forests, where the native tree species have no natural protection. One of the first things our returnee would probably notice is something that is not present in today’s forest - the magnificent American chestnut tree. Although to the settler most species were just trees that were in the way of establishing farms, the chestnut was a tree of great usefulness, both for its wood and its nuts that provided food for both man and animal. The absence of this tree is due to a natural cause, but it is humans and not nature that must take the blame. In the early 1900s, as the timbering in the valley was at its most intensive, the chestnut was under attack from a foreigner invader. Chinese chestnut trees imported from Asia for nursery stock brought with them a fungus that the native chestnut trees had no resistance to. In 1904 it was noticed that trees in the New York Zoological Park were dying. The spores of the fungus were carried by wind, bird, insects, and people throughout the tree’s range in the Appalachian Mountains. By 1910 American chestnut trees were dying across Pennsylvania and the blight was moving south at a rate of 50 miles a year. All efforts to stop the blight failed and by the 1950s the tree was virtually gone from Appalachian forests. There is some hope for the future of the American chestnut as a feature of the Appalachian forests. Even today chestnuts will grow from roots of long dead trees. However, before long the youthful chestnut succumb to the blight. But research efforts have been underway for a number of years to cross-breed with the blight resistant Chinese chestnut and eventually produce an American chestnut that is also blight resistant. Chestnut blight is itself merely the most dramatic symptom of epidemic in Appalachian forest, one that came in with the twentieth century but has hardly run its course. The globalization of the world’s economy is being accompanied by a less beneficial globalization of its ecology. International trade has opened the doors to some very undesirable immigrants. Brought in purposely for one reason or another, or unintentionally on lumber, furniture, exotic plants, and sundry other imports, more than a dozen introduced pests and diseases now assail Appalachia.28 Another example of an “on purpose” human decision that has resulted in a curse to our forests was bringing the gypsy moth, a native of Europe, to this country in -1869 -- 1868 -- in hopes of using it for silk production. Some escaped into the wild and trees began to die due to the defoliation caused by the gypsy moth caterpillars. From the initial defoliation in Massachusetts in 1889, the moth has moved its way south and west, reaching West Virginia in ----. Oak trees, valuable to both wildlife and timberman, have been particularly impacted by the gypsy moth. The moths are also partial to beech, pines, and hemlock. One author recently wrote that “if gypsy moths continue their recurrent pattern of eating all the oaks they can find, other species of trees will take over the dominance of the forests. That will mean fewer acorns, which now serve as the main substitute for chestnuts as wildlife food. The number of wild animals that Appalachian forests can support will take another sharp dip.”29 Fortunately, there is some good news with regard to this pest. A fungus from Japan has been found that attacks only the gypsy moth and has reduced the amount of acres defoliated by --- A pioneer returning to the valley a few years from now will probably find another of tree species common in his time, the hemlock, to be missing. Hemlock has made up a smaller percentage of second growth forest and now a tiny, less than 1/16th of an inch, Asian import, the hemlock woolly adelgid, is threatening to eliminate these magnificent trees from the forests of the eastern United States. It was first found found in 1951 in Richmond, Virginia, in a hemlock tree near Maymont Park. The park was originally a private estate and it is believed the insect may have come to this country with the establishment on the estate of a Japanese garden in 1911.30 There was no particular concern about this pest until the late 1980s when was found in a stand of hemlocks outside of the city. About the same time hemlocks were found to be invested with the woolly adelgid in Shenandoah National Park in Northern Virginia. By the mid-1990s most of hemlocks in the park were dead. The pest has been working its way north, west and south and is now found in sixteen states, covering about half the range of the two hemlock species in the east. In West Virginia, the insect has invaded almost half of the state’s counties. After being infected, a hemlock will die in about three years. There is a chemical treatment but it is expensive to apply and and repeated treatments are needed. Another disease caused by an import is white pine blister rust, caused by a fungus that came to --- The spruce budworm, coming from ----, attacks spruce, firs, tamarack, hemlocks, and pines. In recent decades even more horrors have come to the forests. These include: * Dogwood Anthracnose * Balsam Woolly Aphid * Adelges piceae * Dutch Bark Disease * Butternut Canker * Oak Wilt * Sudden Oak Death, Asian longhorn beetle, emerald ash borer
Sullivan, Rose, New Threats to Mountain State Trees Emerge, WV Wildlife Diversity News, WV DNR, Vol. 19 , No. 4, Winter 2003
Invasive plants impacting forests include: * autumn olive * multiflora rose * tree of heaven * barberry * crown vetch * garlic mustard * Asiatic bittersweet The fewer acres of white pine, spruce, and hemlock, mentioned before, would be a direct result of the lumbering operations. The white pine, the dominate species at lower elevations to the east of the river, now exists only in scattered stands. In its place today are ------- The fires that followed the logging were severe enough in some areas to burn away, not only the debris left behind by the loggers, but the soil itself, leaving only bedrock. Recovery of these areas is, of course, taking longer -- Air pollution has placed a strain on the acid rain - soil nutrient depletion Another environmental factor that is determining the future of our forests is climate change caused by global warming. While the argument goes on about about much of this is to be blamed on man’s activities (among politicians, not reputable scientists), the forests of the Greenbrier Valley, as elsewhere, are slowly changing under its impact. Dan Lewerenz, Associated Press, article in Charleston Gazette, 6/13/2003, "Oaks decline, maples move in", on decline of oaks, increase in maples. Reasons given are (1) fire suppression. Maples sensitive to fire and few used to survive ground fires - oaks use fire as part of natural regeneration. (2) decrease in soil quantity and quality. Soils washed away following clear cutting of 100 years ago and soil polluted by acid rain and stripped of important elements - maples more tolerant of acidic soils . (3) deer population increase. Deer would rather eat oak than maple. Another difference in today's forests as compared to what the original settlers found is in the areas where spruce timber is found. Although it hard to distinguish much of the trees today are Norway spruce rather than the native red spruce. This is another change based on decisions made by those concerned with the future of forests. Starting with Rothkugel, Norway spruce has been used for replanting areas where red spruce was the native tree -
need to find out how much Norway spruce seeding was done and how much of today’s spruce is red and how much Norway – need to confirm that Norway does a better job of surviving the conditions found in cut-over and often burned-over forest land as claimed in Carvel, “Arboreal Mysteries Unraveled”
But I should not end on a pessimistic note. Change is part of the natural scheme and will continue as long as this planet exists. How much the activities of humans have sped up and otherwise impacted this change is a matter of debate among scientists and politicians (more among the latter). Hopefully, before too many more years pass the so-called “intelligent” species will move from decision making based mostly on self-interest and short-term goals to more thoughts for the future of our fragile earth and the best-interest of our children and grandchildren. As for our forests, words written in a February 1, 1905, letter from Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson to Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot, are as true today as when written, “In the administration of the forest reserves it must be clearly borne in mind that all land is to be devoted to its most productive use of the permanent good of the whole people, and not for the temporary benefit of individuals or companies . . . “. . . where conflicting interests must be reconciled the question will always be decided from he standpoint of the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run.”31 Although, as related in the previous pages, the timbermen of the late 1800s and early 1900s did a very tho--- job of removing the trees from the Greenbrier Valley, virgin timber does exist in a few areas. The easiest to access is the Gaudineer Knob ----- . Here --- acres of timber were saved from the lumberman's axe and saw by ------ Baun refers to "A virgin forest area some three miles east of Linwood at the southern end of Back Allegheny Mountain (where it joins the southern end of Cheat Mountain) ...." p 82 Baun has photo on p 80 of virgin white oak near Anthonys Creek - Virginians for Wilderness website, http://asecular.com/forests/anthonycr.htm, Old Growth/Anthony Creek, locates what it thinks is on the east-facing slope just west of the North Fork
A. Price, PT, 12/28/1916, “A forest is a long time in growing, but they do grow.”
PT, 4/7/1927 article on the Upper Tract. “The Upper Tract has in it now the large and important town of Durbin, and one of the big tanneries of the country, but for the most part the land is regaining its wilderness estate, and soon it will be an ideal retreat for the lovers of nature, who will find all the delights of the forest and stream. Time will heal the hurts made by the timber operations, and the experts of the National Forest aid materially in its rejuvenation.”

Although this book is not intended to be a social history of this part of West Virginia, the author feels it would be irresponsible not to comment on some of the recent writings and books about the impact on the development of the natural resources of West Virginia has had on the people of the state and its environment. The usual theme of these books and articles is that it was a disaster, leaving behind an exploited and dispirited people, unable to cope with modern life and a ruined landscape. This analysis has been extended to all regions of the state and all resources, including the timbering in the Greenbrier Valley. Some of these writings, quite frankly, contain historical mistakes about the Greenbrier Valley which show a lack of historical research (or an interpretation of research to meet pre-conceived conclusions). Much of what the writers have said about the impact of development and the actions of developers (past and present) is true, but much is also total imagination. For the coal producing regions of West Virginia, much of what is written about the impacts of development on the land and people is, unfortunately true. However, the Greenbrier Valley and other parts of eastern West Virginia --- There is no argument that the timbering that took place from the late 1800s to about 1930 had major environmental impacts. This has been a major theme in this chapter. It is in discussing the impact on the people and society of the valley that recent authors have gone greatly off base. What is forgotten by these writers is that the valley had a long-established, viable economic base and settled population, based on agriculture, prior to the timber development, unlike much of the coal producing regions of the state, where the coal development was the first and virtually only aspect of the economy. The people of the Greenbrier Valley were not the stereotype “hillbillies” of books, movies, and recent social studies of the Appalachian Mountain states, but as educated -- as any -- In Pocahontas County, for example, three, not one, but three, preparatory schools for the University of Virginia were established in the 1840s. As related in Chapter I, by the time of the Civil War, a series of turnpikes connected the valley with the rest of Virginia. Lewisburg was an educational center The land purchased by the lumber companies was of little value to the agricultural based economy of the Greenbrier Valley. (References to the cost of removing timber to convert land to farm use were made in Chapter I.) The companies did not purchase land being used for agriculture (why would they?), except for sites along the railroad needed for the mills and mill towns. Generally most of these sites went back to agricultural use after the mills closed and remain so today. Did the local landowners get as much as they should have for their timber and timber land? Perhaps not, but this is a question that cannot be answered with certainty now. Getting any income from land that was useless for your main economic activity can only be considered a positive. (Considering the number of lumber company bankruptcies, some folks may have gotten too much for their timber.) The major tracts of land acquired for the lumber companies were not stolen from a group of illiterate farmers. Most of the timber acreage had been in the hands of speculators from “day one” and passed from one group to another over the years. The needs of the lumber companies for food provided a new market for the farmers in the valley and the C&O provided easier access to distant markets. The jobs and business opportunities provided by the timbering operations allowed at least one or two generations of their sons and daughters to remain at home rather than having to leave the area to find employment. As has been recounted before, the timber cutting had negative impacts on the land and forests and there were certainly social impacts from the influx of people, some from other countries, that came with the railroad and timber development. But in terms of history this timber “boom” period was too short, only about sixty years, to radically change either the long-established economic or social situation in the Greenbrier Valley. (The major timbering was completed in less than thirty years.) As for the coming of people from other enthic groups to the valley during the timbering era, in the author’s opinion, at least, it is a shame that some of these new residents were not able to remain in order to provide a more diverse population today. Once the timber was cut, the departing timber companies and their employees did not leave behind an improvished population with no other way of making a living. Obviously, the economic boost provided by the mills was missed by many, but the agricultural base remained, as well as the railroad connecting the valley to the nation and various other improvements that had been put in place during the timbering period. Remaining from the boom timbering period were the two tanneries, the continuing lumber operation at Cass, and other smaller lumbering operations, which --- As the nation went into the Great Depression it may have been just as well for the people of the valley that the timber boom was over; the economic conditions of the 1930s would have brought it to a sudden halt. As it was the boom peaked before 1920 and the valley had been adjusting to The fact that today agriculture can support only a small part of the Greenbrier Valley‘s population has no connection with the timber development. Many other economic factors, both national and international, have brought about the major decrease in the number of people employed in farming. For this part of the state, it has even been suggested that the change of ownership from the lumber companies to the federal government for the Monongahela National Forest is a continuation of some type of evil land ownership by outside interests. This was certainly not the opinion of those alive at the time the cut-over land was being purchased by the federal government. Today, even though memories of the conditions of our forest land following timbering are almost gone, most people will probably agree that the existence of the Monongahela National Forest is a positive for the valley. Though it is true that the federal land might be considered to be owned “from afar,” the owners also include all of us who live in the valley. The land in the MNF is ours and open to all, a considerable difference from the company-owned land in much of the state, with the all too common “no trespassing” signs. Accusations that lumber companies were able to avoid the liability for the environmental impact they had on the land and then make a final profit by selling their cut-over land to the federal government is using a present-day attitude about corporate responsibility that generally did not exist at the time. Besides, we are far from prefect today in making corporations take responsibility for their
The Greenbrier Wilderness
E. D. Coontz
The miles of torn and wasted wood,
Where once a giant forest stood;
—– so dense with laurel and spruce
That the sun could seldom find excuse
To pierce these depths of woodland shade,
—- this wondrous woodland glad
Among deep-rooted trees of earth,
And Greenbrier’s soul was given birth
The waters pure and crystal clear,
With springs that burst from every where
But, there came that day of sacrifice
For this nature’s wooded paradise:
When man had laid his strings of steel,
That power the woodland soon must feel,
With ax and saw men followed fast,
To strip these hills of forests vast;
The few that failed to feel the stroke,
Beneath the hand of fire were broke,
The ghosts of trees stand here and there,
–rch by flame with branches bare.
What means that pile of rusted steel
That brush and bramble half conceal
What is that twisted coil of wire,
Half hidden in the boggish mire?
That crumbling pile of brick you see
Shows where the great boilers used to be
The pond – now home for croaking frogs,
Once covered by a thousand logs,
That grassy plot by yonder wood,
Shows where the horse’s stable stood
And just another ghastly scene,
That broken bridge ‘cross yonder stream
That tangled trail up yonder glen,
Was once the path of horse and men
Out here among the mossy stones,
We view a pile of bleaching bones,
A broken horse perhaps was shot,
His carcass left out here to rot,
Here two stones that mark a tomb,
Where some lone woods man met his doom,
A lonely grave o’er grown with grass
Is seen by few who daily pass.
Beneath the old abandoned grade,
The wood chuck burrows unafraid,
For nothing now disturbs his rest,
His domain here by far the best.
Out from a nook of sheltered shade,
The ruffed grouse struts all unafraid,
An eagle soars on dizzy heights
And owl voices stir upon the nights,
Ravens are talking on the hills,
Their voices mingling with the rills.
The mountains wrapped in slumber deep,
Silent rocks you soul to sleep,
Out here beneath the silent stars,
Now still – no hum of motor cars
What rest tired hearts so seldom meet,
No tramp of men on brick-paved street,
No rumbling of a noisy train,
To shake your nerves or wrack your brain.
The years have sped, the mills have died,
But they left their scars on every side,
A waste of briars and tangled vine,
Where once had stood the stately pine
Around yon green and grassy clump
The remnant of the rotting stump
Where nature once held regal sways
The herds man’s sheep come now to graze.
The camp with all its life is gone,
Some rotting boards are left alone,
Where voices rang now all is still,
For silent stands the noisy mill.
The woods-man’s voices all are dead,
Along the path where sportsmen tread.32e early 1930s. In tLess than a human lifetime was all the time it took; starting in the early 1870s and completed by the early 1930s. In that period the pre-European settlement timber in the Upper Greenbrier Valley had been cut, almost down to every single tree. By the late 1800s and early 1900s the technology available to the lumber industry had made it very efficient in the removal of timber on a large scale. What was true in the Greenbrier Valley was also true in most of eastern West Virginia and much of the rest of the state during the same period. The state’s magnificent forests had been turned into boards, flooring, lath, pulpwood, tan bark, barrel staves, ship pins, shingles, utility poles, and forest floor litter well before nascent efforts to protect some of the nation’s pre-European settlement forests and introduce sustainable forestry practices had a foothold in this state.
The attitude of many towards the forest was that the timber supply was endless. In his 1911 book, Forestry and Wood Industries, published by the West Virginia Geological Survey, Alonzo B. Brooks summarized this feeling:
The need of preserving the forests of this country was not apparent to many persons 200 years ago. The pioneer settlers of our Eastern states built their homes in what they considered an almost boundless wilderness. Trees were regarded by them, naturally, as obstacles in the way of improvement, for they were removed with great labor and could not be sold or given away. The openings first made were insignificant in comparison with the vast woodlands which surrounded them. But this was not long the case. As the population increased and settlements were extended from year to year, the small cornfields were widened into extensive farms; fires began to take their toll from the forests in the region of settlements; and the occupation of lumbering began. In the course of time the various agents of destruction, working together, produced a serious condition in the forests. The condition was not readily observed because the people had not been trained to expect trouble from such a source. The conception that the forest was boundless and inexhaustible had been transmitted from one generation to another until it had become fixed in the minds of the inhabitants as a firm belief. With this inherited handicap, therefore, the present generations were slow in believing even what reason taught them was true.1
Brooks noted that West Virginia originally was almost unbroken forest covering more than 15.5 million acres and containing 150 billion feet of timber. At the time he was writing 60% of the state was still timbered. However, in 1910 there were 83 large band and about 900 portable sawmills operating with the capacity to cut all the timber in the state in the next 16 years. He predicted that by 1940 none of the band mills would be in operation due to the depletion of the timber.2
The lumber companies working in the Greenbrier Valley certainly seem to have operated under this belief of unlimited timber supply. Most came to West Virginia following the depletion of timber in other states and probably assumed they could move on to other areas after this state was cut over.
Arthur H. Winchester, who was an investor in West Virginia timber lands in the late 1800s (including the Cheat Mountain land that he purchased for Dewing and Sons that was later purchased by the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company), is reported to have stated in a hearing before the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representative in 1897 “We [West Virginia] don’t need scientific forestry down our way. The growth of our timber is so rapid that the forests restore themselves without artificial help as fast as they can be cut away.” What Winchester was claiming the state’s timber industry did need was the imposition of tariffs to protect it from cheaper lumber being imported from Canada.3
At least partially due to this attitude, during the period when the pre-settlement timber was being stripped from the mountainsides and valley land in the Upper Greenbrier Valley very little was done in the way of reforestation. The brief employment by the George Craig and Sons Lumber Company of a trained forester was related in the article on that company (see Winterburn, Chapter X). There are a few references to the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company making an effort to replant the area the company logged. One was in a news article at the time of absorption of the West Virginia Spruce Lumber Company into the parent company in 1909. The article included:
Another interesting feature of their operations has been the adoption of scientific forestry methods in their lumbering, which, according to their experience to date, assures them practically an inexhaustible supply of timber on their present holdings
Only the right timber has been logged, they are constantly replanting, and today they have 25,000 acres which has been logged over which is coming, both from seedling and young timber growth, to a condition which will permit of most profitable logging thereon again before they have anywhere near logged their entire premises.4
An article on the lumber operation at Cass in the American Lumberman in 1911 made a brief reference to replanting by W. Va. Pulp and Paper. Following comments on the company’s efforts to control fire, the article continues: “Only about 1500 of its 25,000 acres of the company’s cut over lands have been burned over and these are being carefully replanted, as are other areas where the young timber left is not sufficient to provide a heavy future growth. In replanting, the men pick up the small spruce which are to be found in abundance among the older timber and these are put into ground within twenty-four hours.”5
WVP&P wrote to Brooks in 1910 and reported the company had planted 25,000 spruce trees in 1909, with about 80% growing a year later, and 170,000 spruce and 2000 yellow poplars in 1910. In the letter the company expressed it great interest “in the reproduction of forests on our property and it is our present intention to do everything in our power in the future to save and propagate the timber.” The letter stated that timber under about ten inches was being left. “We confidently believe that if the fire can be kept out of the old slashing that our property will reproduce itself rapidly and that by the time we have lumbered over it, it will be possible to go over it again, and while of course we will not be able to secure the quantity of large lumber, we can make the crops perpetual for pulp.”6
However, other than these limited efforts – and WVP&P seems to have discontinued its reforestation program after a few years – the companies cutting the Greenbrier Valley timber did it with no particular thought to the future.
But, as always in judging the actions of those who came before us, we must be careful not to use the standards and knowledge of our time. Particularly, since in many parts of the world, including parts of environmentally “enlightened” North America, the forests are continued to be attacked as if they go on forever. Our ancestors could only see unending forests as they climbed to the top of each mountain – today we can see the entire earth virtually at once from space. Yet, we are generally behaving as a lumber company of 1900 without the excuse of limited vision. Our approach today to other natural resources, particularly oil and natural gas, is not much different. As the 21st Century gets underway we still seem to operate mainly on the belief that these resources are infinite.
The generation that is using “mountain top removal” for the production of coal is not exactly in a position to criticize those who clear cut the timber of our West Virginia mountains. The trees have regrown; the mountains will not. True, acres of ugliness did follow the timbering. Clear cut sites are not pretty and fires followed the logging in many areas, burning the left behind debris and in places burning off the eons-old accumulation of humus down to bare rock. But trees have regrown and even the areas of the worse fires are slowly healing. The ugliness and waste of mountain top removal will remain with us and the generations to come, forever.
Attitude was not the only reason for the “clear cut” timbering that was done; economics played a major role. Even lumbermen who may have had the foresight to realize that the amount of timber was finite were confined by the economics of the business. The average company held a relatively small amount of timber and reaching it required for most the major cost of building a railroad. There was no way a company could regain its expenses and pay its debts if it built a railroad some distance into a section of its holdings, take only part of the timber, and then remove the track, planning to relay it back a number of years later to take some additional timber. The only way to make money on the investment of money for timber, equipment, and railroad construction was to take it all. Only a few companies owned large enough amounts of timber land to be able to look forward to a return to the cut-over portion of their holdings.
In his 1908 article on forest land management in West Virginia, Max Rothkugel recommended the use of portable mills, 15,000 to 20,000 feet per day capacity, rather than large capacity mills, of up to 100,000 capacity. “Big mills with their large investment in equipment and in rails must disappear before management of the present stands can be practiced. With a comparatively small investment tied up in mills and railroads the forest can be constantly maintained in a productive condition and still a good interest percent on the original investment would be assured.”7
In the Upper Greenbrier Valley, the only companies with large enough land holdings to consider being able to recut their own land were St. Lawrence Boom and Manufacturing/Sherwood Companies, Greenbrier River Lumber Company, and West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company. There is no evidence that SLB&M/Sherwood ever made any effort in reforestation. GRLCo was mainly a land holding company for John McGraw and, other than the small amount cut in the early 1900s, sold its property to other lumber companies.
As noted before there are a few references to reforestation by WVP&P in early years. One of these is in the 1911 book, Forestry and Wood Industries. Under the Randolph County section, there is statement: “It is gratifying to note that at least one lumber company – the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company – is making extensive plantations of spruce trees on its cut-over lands near the head of Shavers Fork of Cheat river.” However, no evidence exists that the effort continued on a long-term basis. Mower Lumber did cut second growth timber on its former WVP&P land, but this was due to the efforts of Mother Nature and not planned reforestation.8
As early as the mid-1890s the logging had been going on for a sufficient length of time that the change it created in the landscape was becoming obvious. In early 1897 the Times made the following observation:
The disappearance of the logs and timbermen have made a great change in the appearance of things between Marlinton and Driscol. Our old acquaintances, the logs, will hardly be recognizable when they return in a year or two as furniture, goods-boxes and picture frames. It makes a great difference with logs, as well as boys, to go abroad, remain awhile and then come back to serve some useful or ornamental purpose.9
However, there were voices during the boom period expressing regret about the destruction of the area’s forests and concern about the future timber supply.
In 1898, even before the major logging had begun in the Greenbrier Valley, the West Virginia Board of Agriculture declared “Owing to the rapid destruction of our forests it is high time that something be done looking toward the preservation and protection of our timber land.”10
In a 1903 article on the operations of WVP&P on Cheat Mountain, Marlinton resident Norman Price commented, “It is a pity that the government did not set aside the forests about the headwaters of our rivers as a forest reserve.” However, he followed that sentence with “However the sacrifice of the trees has brought capital to be invested in the county, and therewith we must rest content.”11
On December 5, 1906, a traveling salesman of Sure Shot tobacco by the name of Ignatius Brennen sat on the end of a crosstie at Stony Bottom and wrote the following poem, presumably to his wife or girlfriend.
“In the Greenbrier Mountains”
With a pad on my knee, dear,
I’m penning to thee dear,
A line of myself emblamatic,
Through not sentimental,
Nor yet Continental,
But very much straight Democratic.
In the Greenbrier Mountains,
Where natural fountains,
Have slacked the wild deer of its thirsting,
I’m plying my trading,
And green haunts invading,
And quaffing from water to bursting.
When God made this Creation,
His intention, I’d reckon,
Was a home for the wild beasts and savage,
But the white man came onward,
Moonward and sunward,
Its fine virgin forests to ravage.
The forests depleted,
The rape is completed,
What nature held sacred has vanished,
The fawn and its mother,
And lo-the poor Indian, are banished.
The fir and the pine tree,
The hemlock and vine-tree,
Exchanges of sorrow are granting,
The fire-ravished hill-side,
The snake haunted rill-side,
Inanimate requiems are chanting.
The Greenbrier River,
Rolls on with a quiver,
Polluted with chemical lotion,
It hastes to connection,
In southwest direction,
Contented when lost in the ocean.
I turn back the pages,
And stop with the ages,
When nature was absolute master,
Then picture the white man,
(Lets hope he’s a right man),
Who wrough all this awful disaster.12
The author would love to know what brought about this outburst from Mr. Brennen (an early environmentalist?). Perhaps "chemical lotion" referred to some discharge from the tannery at Frank? It would seem something more likely to be written about twenty years later; in 1906 the stripping of the mountainsides of timber had only begun. In an article written after logging was underway on the North Fork of the Cherry River, W. C. Dodrill described the impact on that watershed and compared it with the adjoining Cranberry River. An object lesson in the changed conditions brought about by cutting away the timber may be seen along the divide between Cherry and Cranberry. On the Cherry side all the timber in some place has been cut down except the birch that is not of the best quality and a few, very few, other species that are worthless for lumber. Worthless and broken logs strew the ground. Tramway roads leading to the tops of the hills are found at short intervals. Each rain cuts these deeper and washes away the humus that is so essential to plant life. Nothing remains to remind one of the greatness of this beautiful old forest but the decaying stumps. By counting the ring growths of some of the black spruce stumps it was found that the tree had been nourished by the rains of more than 500 summers and had defied the storms of as many winters. In this region destruction and desolation is depicted everywhere. But what are the conditions existing on the other side of the divided where the woodman's axe has been withheld! The forest admirer may wander for days among the grand old trees that have stood for centuries. The ground is covered with a soft carpet of moss and decaying leaves. The water that falls in the form of rain or snow gradually sinks into the ground. What is not utilized by the trees seeks a lower level by a slow process. Dodrill made note of the difference in water runoff between the two areas, with the Cherry nearly always muddy and the Cranberry nearly always clear; greater floods in the former and fewer in the later; also, more water in the Cranberry than the Cherry than the time of drought. In noting that "Water supply is as much a question in the conservation of the forests as the timber supply. One in a measure depends upon the other." Dodrill was giving one of the arguments that lead to the creation of eastern national forests. He also noted the lesser number of birds found on the Cherry since lumber operations began. Within two years. timbering is to begin on the Cranberry, Dodrill wrote, "When this occurs one of the most beautiful and picturesque mountain streams in the Appalachian region will be robbed of its greatest glory . . . "13 A 1912 article in the Times with the title "Timber," it was noted that timber production was already more that thought possible and there was still a lot to be cut: The lumberman have already taken from this county threes times as much timber as the highest guess ever made at it prior to the building of the railroad. Three hundred million a year for the past ten years is a low estimate and three billion feet of lumber has been shipped from the mills and great areas of timber are not touched yet. About one third of the timber has been cut is one guess at the present situation, though that runs the amount of timber to fabulous figures. Just when the timber of this county will give out is a hazy and uncertain period, and the subject is not a welcome one.14 At the time the timbering that would strip the Upper Greenbrier Valley of its trees was getting underway, there were the beginnings of national concern about the massive cutting of the nation's forests. It was probably the removal of forests to provide land for agriculture that began the first concerns about whether the wanton destruction of forest land was a good thing. It was "agriculturalists who saw and appreciated what clearing could do to the land itself, to the soil, the stream flow, the microclimate, and the fish and animal life." As early as 1818 former President James Madison noted that all of the errors in the rural economy of the United States "none is so much to be regretted, perhaps because none is so difficult to repair, as the injurious and excessive destruction of timber and firewood."15 Madison was early in his concern about forest removal, but by the latter part of the Nineteenth Century there were a number of people expressing concern over the destruction of the forests, both for farms and lumber. One of the first given credit for bringing attention to the rapid deforestation and it impacts was George Perkins Marsh with his book Man and Nature, published in 1864. This is a remarkable book, considered by some to be the beginning of the modern environmental movement. One of the most influencial books of its time, second perhaps only to one published five year's earlier, Darwin's Origin of Species. The brief amount of space the author can give to Man and Nature in this writing cannot begin to ----- If one did not know the date it was published, the insight Marsh shows into environmental problems caused by our misuse of our resources reads like the date was 1964 rather than 100 years earlier. Marsh was born in 1901 in the Green Mountains of Vermont, at Woodstock, at the time when the mountains were truly green. He Spending five years in Turkey as -- and then the last 21 years of his life as ambassador to Italy gave Marsh a close look how George Marsh delivered an address before the Agricultural Society of Rutland County, Vermont, on - - - -- - in 1847. Marsh had worn many hats over his lifetime: lawyer, journalist, sheep farmer, mill owner, linguistics scholar, and diplomat. He designed the Washington Monument and co-founded the Smithsonian Institution. But it was in his role as United States senator that he addressed the Agricultural Society. He was the first person to publicly raise the issue of manmade climate change, and his speech helped spark the conservation movement. In his speech, Marsh said: "Man cannot at his pleasure command the rain and the sunshine, the wind and frost and snow, yet it is certain that climate itself has in many instances been gradually changed and ameliorated or deteriorated by human action. The draining of swamps and the clearing of forests perceptibly effect the evaporation from the earth [...] The same causes modify the electrical condition of the atmosphere and the power of the surface to reflect, absorb and radiate the rays of the sun, and consequently influence the distribution of light and heat, and the force and direction of the winds. Within narrow limits too, domestic fires and artificial structures create and diffuse increased warmth, to an extent that may effect vegetation." He was talking about concepts familiar to us now as the urban heat island effect and the greenhouse effect. As a result of his speech, Marsh went on to publish a book titled Man and Nature: or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action (1864). "[M]an is everywhere a disturbing agent," Marsh wrote. "Wherever he plants his foot, the harmonies of nature are turned to discords. The proportions and accommodations which insured the stability of existing arrangements are overthrown. Indigenous vegetable and animal species are extirpated, and supplanted by others of foreign origin, spontaneous production is forbidden or restricted, and the face of the earth is either laid bare or covered with a new and reluctant growth of vegetable forms, and with alien tribes of animal life. Marsh's book was used by those with a growing realization of the for government owned forest reserves to support their case. These efforts resulted in the first national forests being established in the 1890s. These actions followed the passage of the Forest Reserve Act in 1891 authorizing the president to set aside forest reserves from the public domain. At first these lands were managed by the Department of the Interior. Also in 1891, a Division of Forestry was created within the Department of Agriculture. In 1905 the Forestry Bureau was renamed the Forest Service and the forest reserves came under its jurisdiction. Clifford Pinchot was the first head of the USFS. Moving to the state level, in the early 1900s some actions were beginning for the protection of the state’s forest lands. In 1906, a pamphlet entitled The Needs of Forest Protection in West Virginia and Suggestions for a Forest Law was published by Hu Maxwell. He noted the value of the state’s forests for timber and influence on erosion and water flow, their destruction by fire and careless lumbering, and lack of action to prevent waste. However, the law proposed in the pamphlet was considered in the 1907 Legislature but failed to pass.16 Governor William Dawson appointed a three-member Conservation Commission in 1908, with Maxwell as one of the members. The Commission’s report, published in the fall of that year, devoted a major part to a discussion of the forest resources of the state and made recommendations for policies to protect these resources.17 also in 1908? West Virginia University established a Chair of Forestry as a department in its College of Agriculture and selected A. W. Nolan as the school’s first professor of forestry - Brooks, p 361-2 The West Virginia Forestry Association was organized at a meeting in January 1908 at WVU by representatives from 23 counties of the state Brooks p 362 PT, 3/12/1908 - meeting was on Jan. 24, reference in the article to the new department of forestry at WVU, Prof. A. W. Nolan, professor in charge of the new department, elected secretary of the WVFA - objects of the new group included: conservation of forest resources of the state; bring about better state laws for conserving and utilizing forests; take steps to reforesting denuded lands and exempting of woodlands from taxation; encourage tree planting; educate youth to appreciate the economic as well as esthetic value of trees In Forestry Quarterly, Vol. VI, p 329, from Southern Lumberman, 2/15/1908, W. Va. has
added a forestry school the state university
a state forestry association has been formed
State Board of Trade has appointed a committee to draft forest laws and police for the Legislature at its next session
In the early 1900s, just as the timbering boom in the Greenbrier Valley was getting up a full head of steam, The Pocahontas Times printed two articles which warned of the rate at which the nation was cutting its timber resource.
The first was in 1907 with the reprint of an article by an U. S. Department of Agriculture forester, Overton W. Price. Price began his article by noting that the lumber industry in the United States ranked fourth among the manufacturing industries of the country, producing products with an annual value of $566,090,000 and providing employment for considerably more than a million people. He noted rapid improvements in tools and machinery that had taken place in the industry in the previous fifty years. “In effective methods for the harvesting and manufacturing of lumber, the American lumberman has no superior, . . .”
However, Price quickly got to the main point of his article which was that the rapid development of the industry “has been fundamentally unsound in principle” and was heading for failure due to the rate at which it was depleting the resource upon which it depended. “The havoc which has been wrought in the forest of the United States has turned trees into money, but the balance on the wrong side of the sheet by rendering vast areas unproductive.” The sentence quoted in the last paragraph concluded “nor is he equaled in his disregard for the future of the forest which he cuts.” Price noted that although with the data then available “there is no way to foretell accurately the time necessary to exhaust this supply of merchantable timber,” he supports his argument about the dangers to the future of the lumber industry by noting that already were the supplies of timber of some species were failing and some almost exhausted. He gave as examples black walnut, white pine (“growing rapidly to be a rarity on the market”) and spruce for pulpwood. The list of species once considered valueless were being harvested more and being accepted as merchantable due to the exhaustion of more valuable kinds, Price wrote.
“It is natural that the lumberman should not turn eagerly from a system whose only aim is to secure the highest possible present profit from the forest to one which includes provisions for the production of a second crop from the lumbered area,” Price stated. However, he wrote that the time for “practical forestry has fully arrived.”18
The second article in the paper was excerpts from a 1909 report issued by the U. S. Forest Service, “The Timber Supply of the United States,” that claimed that the nation was cutting its forests faster than the annual growth. The report stated the nation was cutting its forests three times as fast as new timber was growing. “There is menace in the continuance of such conditions. While we might never reach absolute timber exhaustion, the unrestricted exploitation of our forests in the past has already had serious effects and it will have worse if it is allowed to continue unchecked.” White pine was used as one of the examples in the report. “White pine, for instance, which was once considered inexhausible, has fallen off seventy per cent in cut since 1890, and more than forty-five per cent since 1900.”
The report noted “The fact that timber has been cheap and abundant has made us careless of its production and reckless in its use.” It went on to give the example of Germany which was managing its forests so that wood growth exceeded timber production. “But to reach the necessary condition of equilibrium between timber production and consumption will take many years of vigorous effort by individual forest owners, by the States, and by the National Government. None of them can solve the problem alone; all must work together.”19
The office of Forest, Game, and Fish Warden was created by the Legislature in 1909, to replace the existing Fish and Game Warden position. J. A. Viquesney was appointed to the new position. The 1909 law also called for forest protection and research and provided for punishment of individuals and company owners who intentionally or carelessly set forest fires.20
In his 1911 book, Brooks surveyed what other states were doing to protect their forests and made a number of recommendations. The first was for the appointment of a state forester with duties in the areas of education, advice to private land owners, forest fire control, collection of data on forest and forest industries, and determining whether state-owned lands should be retained for forestry purposes. To encourage tree planting he recommended a law that would exempt from taxes for a period of years land that is planted to carefully prepared specifications or provide for a scale of rebates on such lands. Also recommended was for the state to agree to the acquisition of land by the federal government for a national forest.21
In an article in American Forestry magazine in 1913, Merritt Wilson, a West Virginia lumberman, wrote that unless the effort is made “to protect the growing timber and reforest the cutover lands of West Virginia that the lumber industry, one of the leading industries of our state, will soon be almost a thing of the past. The uncut area is getting smaller every year and it would seem that the only way to have a supply for the future is to grow it.” He noted that this state is “perhaps as well adapted to growing timber as any State east of the Mississippi river, unless it is Maine, and while it is well adapted to growing timber, much of the area is of little value for anything else, owing to the rough and mountainous character of the country.” Later in his article, Wilson gave his estimate of 12,000 square miles of the state “better adapted for growing timber than anything else.”
Wilson recommended the creation of a state Forestry Commission with the power to buy cut-over lands. Like Brooks, he also recommended using the tax laws to encourage the setting aside of land for reforestation.
He stressed that fire was the greatest threat to growing new forests. He noted that the cause of most forest fires were sparks from railroad and logging company locomotives and fires set by farmers to make more range for livestock, as well fires set by those who just want to see the woods burn. Lack of care by the railroad companies came under particular criticism from Wilson. “It is our opinion that companies and individuals carelessly letting fires get started should be made to pay damages for any timber and other property destroyed.”22
At the national level forested lands were being protected in the growing national forest system. However, all the first national forests had to be located in the west, as that is where the federal government owned land. The government had no authority to purchase private land for preserves. Following the establishment of the national forests in the west, efforts began to have legislation passed to allow the establishment of federal forest reserves in the Appalachians. Those in favor stressed the importance of forests in preventing flooding and siltation and regulation of stream flow. Following bad flooding in 1907 with millions of dollars of damages along the Monongahela and Ohio Rivers, the role of the cutover mountains in the headwaters in making the situation worse became obvious. Finally in 1911 Congress passed the Weeks Act which authorized the federal purchase of forests to protect the headwaters of navigable streams.
The first purchase within West Virginia for national forest purpose was in Tucker County in 1915. In 1920 the Monongahela purchase area was proclaimed as the Monongahela National Forest. The first property purchased for the MNF in the Greenbrier Valley was from the George Craig and Sons Lumber Company in April 1923. The tract contained 9,674 acres on — 23
The State of West Virginia was also taking additional action to protect the state’s forest lands. In 1921 the West Virginia Game and Fish Commission was created for the purpose of — need copy of law
The first tracts purchased by the Commission were in the Greenbrier Valley. In January 1924 A. D. Neill sold 10,847 acres to the Commission and a year later 4,546 acres were purchased from the Watoga Land Association. Today the former tract makes up most of Seneca State Forest and the other about half of Watoga State Park.24
As related in the articles on the individual lumber companies, most of their lands went into government ownership after being cut. In 2011 the Monongahela National Forest owns —- acres in Greenbrier and Pocahontas Counties and state parks and forests make up another —- acres of mostly former lumber company land.
The Fish and Game Commission also had responsibilities for a forest fire protection system.
Perhaps find somewhere in the fire discussion to fit in quotes from:
PT, 10/31/1901 – “This section has been scourged with fires several times within the past two years where forest fires were never known before, the woods being too dense and damp to burn, but with the opening up of farms and the cutting of the timber the woods are becoming dry.” from article on a fire on Laurel Creek (of Williams River)
PT, 11/5/1931 – Forest fires burned 64,110 acres in the county, January 1922 to January 1931 – estimated timber damage, $135,984
PT, 10/15/1914 Lookout stations in Pocahontas County were on Marlin Mountain at Mt. View Orchard, Briery Knob, and Bald Knob. “The country covered by the Marlin Mountain lookout is the Greenbrier Valley from the Alleghany top to the top of the high dividing ridge between the Greenbrier, and Cheat, Elk, Williams and Cranberry, as far north as Cass and as far south as Spice Run.”
Shawkey, p 286, F&G C installed 34 steel fire towers “within past five years” – “put nearly one-half of the timber area of the State, which is seriously subject to forest fires, under the observation of the rangers who are on duty constantly during the dry weather periods of the year.”
Despite all the human tragedy associated with the Great Depression of the 1930s, it reduced the demand for timber and thus reduced the amount of cutting, giving forests the opportunity to recover from the over cutting of the previous half-century. Marginal farm land was abandoned as the nation slid into depression and allowed to return to timberland.
The Depression also produced also one of the most important conservation efforts in the nation’s history, the Civilian Conservation Corps. Within the geographic area covered by this writing a total of fourteen CCC camps were established. Some had a brief existence while others were open for almost the entire period of the CCC program. All did work in the areas of reforestation, forest fire control, development of parks —- that are still obvious today.25
In 1933 the W. Va. Legislature replaced the Forest, Game and Fish Commission with the Conservation Commission (now the Department of Natural Resources) — allow state to work with the CCC – This law also established the position of state forester — need law
At West Virginia University, the Chair of Forestry became the School of Forestry in 1935 — check details
The good work of natural forces, with the human assistance related above, have restored the forests to the mountains and bottom lands of the Greenbrier Valley and at first glance they would look very familiar to any early settler who might by some way be able to return to the valley. Obviously, the vast acres of cleared farmland would be different than the few small clearings found by the original settlers, but the forested mountains would seem the same. As was the case 300 years ago, there is a progression of tree species as altitude changes, with the spruce on the highest ridges.
However, differences would be quickly noticed by our reincarnated pioneer. Today’s forest of second and third growth trees would look much different than the mostly mature forest found by the early settlers. The proportion of the various species would be considerably different now, with some species found by the original settlers non-existent or greatly reduced in extent.
Some of the differences in today’s forest from the forest that existed 300 years ago are the natural changes that occur when forests regrow from a disturbance. At one time it was believed that the climax forest in a given area was permanent; following a destruction of a section of forest, the eventual mature forest would be the same as was there before. This has found not to be the case since it takes up to hundreds of years for a forest to become mature and conditions of climate and other factors affecting forests are not the same over time. Other changes from the forest the first Europeans found are more directly the result of human activity.
One difference is the acreages of white pine, red spruce, and hemlock are much reduced from the forest the first settlers found. Whether this is a temporary condition as the forests recover from the clear-cut logging operations and grow their way towards maturity (assuming we would let them do this) or a permanent change in our forests, only time will tell.
As the lumbering operations were just getting underway, nature was making changes in the forests. In the documents in a — court case was the following statement by Daniel O’Connell:
Respondent further states that whether it is generally known or not, it is a fact, that Pine timber in that section within the last two years has been seriously prayed upon by a insect styled amongst lumbermen as “the bug”.
Mr. Brewer, as the respondent is informed and believes, becoming uneasy lest some of his pine timber should be lost to him on account of this insect decided to cut some of the timber of that character standing upon these lands during the present [1893-94] logging season.26
The writer of a news item in January 1895 noted “Everything has combined against lumbering the past few years. Bugs destroyed the timber, the rains ceased, and the price has fallen.”27
“The bug” referred by O’Connell is the southern pine beetle (Dendroctonus frontalis). This insect is one of the most destructive insects of pines in the southern United States
Forestry Quarterly, Vol IX, 1911, No. 3, September 1911 – a news note on the southern pine beetle states “It appears, however, that only at long intervals does it increase to such numbers as to cause widespread depredations, such as, for example, the great invasion of 1890 – 1893 in the Virginias.”
CWP, PT, 12/19/1935, refers to the southern pine beetle taking out the yellow pine east of the GR "more than forty years ago" "I remember being taken to a high mountain to look out over the Greenbrier peniplain (sic) and to see vast stretches of country brown as a sheep skin form the dead pines. This tree was superceded (sic) by the oaks, soft maple, hickory, and where the ground was too thin for better species of trees, chinquepin oak and bull pine." At least the southern pine beetle is a natural part of the North American ecosystem and the native trees have evolved ways to survive attacks by it. Unfortunately, such is not the case with imported dangers to the forests, where the native tree species have no natural protection. One of the first things our returnee would probably notice is something that is not present in today’s forest - the magnificent American chestnut tree. Although to the settler most species were just trees that were in the way of establishing farms, the chestnut was a tree of great usefulness, both for its wood and its nuts that provided food for both man and animal. The absence of this tree is due to a natural cause, but it is humans and not nature that must take the blame. In the early 1900s, as the timbering in the valley was at its most intensive, the chestnut was under attack from a foreigner invader. Chinese chestnut trees imported from Asia for nursery stock brought with them a fungus that the native chestnut trees had no resistance to. In 1904 it was noticed that trees in the New York Zoological Park were dying. The spores of the fungus were carried by wind, bird, insects, and people throughout the tree’s range in the Appalachian Mountains. By 1910 American chestnut trees were dying across Pennsylvania and the blight was moving south at a rate of 50 miles a year. All efforts to stop the blight failed and by the 1950s the tree was virtually gone from Appalachian forests. There is some hope for the future of the American chestnut as a feature of the Appalachian forests. Even today chestnuts will grow from roots of long dead trees. However, before long the youthful chestnut succumb to the blight. But research efforts have been underway for a number of years to cross-breed with the blight resistant Chinese chestnut and eventually produce an American chestnut that is also blight resistant. Chestnut blight is itself merely the most dramatic symptom of epidemic in Appalachian forest, one that came in with the twentieth century but has hardly run its course. The globalization of the world’s economy is being accompanied by a less beneficial globalization of its ecology. International trade has opened the doors to some very undesirable immigrants. Brought in purposely for one reason or another, or unintentionally on lumber, furniture, exotic plants, and sundry other imports, more than a dozen introduced pests and diseases now assail Appalachia.28 Another example of an “on purpose” human decision that has resulted in a curse to our forests was bringing the gypsy moth, a native of Europe, to this country in -1869 -- 1868 -- in hopes of using it for silk production. Some escaped into the wild and trees began to die due to the defoliation caused by the gypsy moth caterpillars. From the initial defoliation in Massachusetts in 1889, the moth has moved its way south and west, reaching West Virginia in ----. Oak trees, valuable to both wildlife and timberman, have been particularly impacted by the gypsy moth. The moths are also partial to beech, pines, and hemlock. One author recently wrote that “if gypsy moths continue their recurrent pattern of eating all the oaks they can find, other species of trees will take over the dominance of the forests. That will mean fewer acorns, which now serve as the main substitute for chestnuts as wildlife food. The number of wild animals that Appalachian forests can support will take another sharp dip.”29 Fortunately, there is some good news with regard to this pest. A fungus from Japan has been found that attacks only the gypsy moth and has reduced the amount of acres defoliated by --- A pioneer returning to the valley a few years from now will probably find another of tree species common in his time, the hemlock, to be missing. Hemlock has made up a smaller percentage of second growth forest and now a tiny, less than 1/16th of an inch, Asian import, the hemlock woolly adelgid, is threatening to eliminate these magnificent trees from the forests of the eastern United States. It was first found found in 1951 in Richmond, Virginia, in a hemlock tree near Maymont Park. The park was originally a private estate and it is believed the insect may have come to this country with the establishment on the estate of a Japanese garden in 1911.30 There was no particular concern about this pest until the late 1980s when was found in a stand of hemlocks outside of the city. About the same time hemlocks were found to be invested with the woolly adelgid in Shenandoah National Park in Northern Virginia. By the mid-1990s most of hemlocks in the park were dead. The pest has been working its way north, west and south and is now found in sixteen states, covering about half the range of the two hemlock species in the east. In West Virginia, the insect has invaded almost half of the state’s counties. After being infected, a hemlock will die in about three years. There is a chemical treatment but it is expensive to apply and and repeated treatments are needed. Another disease caused by an import is white pine blister rust, caused by a fungus that came to --- The spruce budworm, coming from ----, attacks spruce, firs, tamarack, hemlocks, and pines. In recent decades even more horrors have come to the forests. These include: * Dogwood Anthracnose * Balsam Woolly Aphid * Adelges piceae * Dutch Bark Disease * Butternut Canker * Oak Wilt * Sudden Oak Death, Asian longhorn beetle, emerald ash borer
Sullivan, Rose, New Threats to Mountain State Trees Emerge, WV Wildlife Diversity News, WV DNR, Vol. 19 , No. 4, Winter 2003
Invasive plants impacting forests include: * autumn olive * multiflora rose * tree of heaven * barberry * crown vetch * garlic mustard * Asiatic bittersweet The fewer acres of white pine, spruce, and hemlock, mentioned before, would be a direct result of the lumbering operations. The white pine, the dominate species at lower elevations to the east of the river, now exists only in scattered stands. In its place today are ------- The fires that followed the logging were severe enough in some areas to burn away, not only the debris left behind by the loggers, but the soil itself, leaving only bedrock. Recovery of these areas is, of course, taking longer -- Air pollution has placed a strain on the acid rain - soil nutrient depletion Another environmental factor that is determining the future of our forests is climate change caused by global warming. While the argument goes on about about much of this is to be blamed on man’s activities (among politicians, not reputable scientists), the forests of the Greenbrier Valley, as elsewhere, are slowly changing under its impact. Dan Lewerenz, Associated Press, article in Charleston Gazette, 6/13/2003, "Oaks decline, maples move in", on decline of oaks, increase in maples. Reasons given are (1) fire suppression. Maples sensitive to fire and few used to survive ground fires - oaks use fire as part of natural regeneration. (2) decrease in soil quantity and quality. Soils washed away following clear cutting of 100 years ago and soil polluted by acid rain and stripped of important elements - maples more tolerant of acidic soils . (3) deer population increase. Deer would rather eat oak than maple. Another difference in today's forests as compared to what the original settlers found is in the areas where spruce timber is found. Although it hard to distinguish much of the trees today are Norway spruce rather than the native red spruce. This is another change based on decisions made by those concerned with the future of forests. Starting with Rothkugel, Norway spruce has been used for replanting areas where red spruce was the native tree -
need to find out how much Norway spruce seeding was done and how much of today’s spruce is red and how much Norway – need to confirm that Norway does a better job of surviving the conditions found in cut-over and often burned-over forest land as claimed in Carvel, “Arboreal Mysteries Unraveled”
But I should not end on a pessimistic note. Change is part of the natural scheme and will continue as long as this planet exists. How much the activities of humans have sped up and otherwise impacted this change is a matter of debate among scientists and politicians (more among the latter). Hopefully, before too many more years pass the so-called “intelligent” species will move from decision making based mostly on self-interest and short-term goals to more thoughts for the future of our fragile earth and the best-interest of our children and grandchildren. As for our forests, words written in a February 1, 1905, letter from Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson to Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot, are as true today as when written, “In the administration of the forest reserves it must be clearly borne in mind that all land is to be devoted to its most productive use of the permanent good of the whole people, and not for the temporary benefit of individuals or companies . . . “. . . where conflicting interests must be reconciled the question will always be decided from he standpoint of the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run.”31 Although, as related in the previous pages, the timbermen of the late 1800s and early 1900s did a very tho--- job of removing the trees from the Greenbrier Valley, virgin timber does exist in a few areas. The easiest to access is the Gaudineer Knob ----- . Here --- acres of timber were saved from the lumberman's axe and saw by ------ Baun refers to "A virgin forest area some three miles east of Linwood at the southern end of Back Allegheny Mountain (where it joins the southern end of Cheat Mountain) ...." p 82 Baun has photo on p 80 of virgin white oak near Anthonys Creek - Virginians for Wilderness website, http://asecular.com/forests/anthonycr.htm, Old Growth/Anthony Creek, locates what it thinks is on the east-facing slope just west of the North Fork
A. Price, PT, 12/28/1916, “A forest is a long time in growing, but they do grow.”
PT, 4/7/1927 article on the Upper Tract. “The Upper Tract has in it now the large and important town of Durbin, and one of the big tanneries of the country, but for the most part the land is regaining its wilderness estate, and soon it will be an ideal retreat for the lovers of nature, who will find all the delights of the forest and stream. Time will heal the hurts made by the timber operations, and the experts of the National Forest aid materially in its rejuvenation.”

Although this book is not intended to be a social history of this part of West Virginia, the author feels it would be irresponsible not to comment on some of the recent writings and books about the impact on the development of the natural resources of West Virginia has had on the people of the state and its environment. The usual theme of these books and articles is that it was a disaster, leaving behind an exploited and dispirited people, unable to cope with modern life and a ruined landscape. This analysis has been extended to all regions of the state and all resources, including the timbering in the Greenbrier Valley. Some of these writings, quite frankly, contain historical mistakes about the Greenbrier Valley which show a lack of historical research (or an interpretation of research to meet pre-conceived conclusions). Much of what the writers have said about the impact of development and the actions of developers (past and present) is true, but much is also total imagination. For the coal producing regions of West Virginia, much of what is written about the impacts of development on the land and people is, unfortunately true. However, the Greenbrier Valley and other parts of eastern West Virginia --- There is no argument that the timbering that took place from the late 1800s to about 1930 had major environmental impacts. This has been a major theme in this chapter. It is in discussing the impact on the people and society of the valley that recent authors have gone greatly off base. What is forgotten by these writers is that the valley had a long-established, viable economic base and settled population, based on agriculture, prior to the timber development, unlike much of the coal producing regions of the state, where the coal development was the first and virtually only aspect of the economy. The people of the Greenbrier Valley were not the stereotype “hillbillies” of books, movies, and recent social studies of the Appalachian Mountain states, but as educated -- as any -- In Pocahontas County, for example, three, not one, but three, preparatory schools for the University of Virginia were established in the 1840s. As related in Chapter I, by the time of the Civil War, a series of turnpikes connected the valley with the rest of Virginia. Lewisburg was an educational center The land purchased by the lumber companies was of little value to the agricultural based economy of the Greenbrier Valley. (References to the cost of removing timber to convert land to farm use were made in Chapter I.) The companies did not purchase land being used for agriculture (why would they?), except for sites along the railroad needed for the mills and mill towns. Generally most of these sites went back to agricultural use after the mills closed and remain so today. Did the local landowners get as much as they should have for their timber and timber land? Perhaps not, but this is a question that cannot be answered with certainty now. Getting any income from land that was useless for your main economic activity can only be considered a positive. (Considering the number of lumber company bankruptcies, some folks may have gotten too much for their timber.) The major tracts of land acquired for the lumber companies were not stolen from a group of illiterate farmers. Most of the timber acreage had been in the hands of speculators from “day one” and passed from one group to another over the years. The needs of the lumber companies for food provided a new market for the farmers in the valley and the C&O provided easier access to distant markets. The jobs and business opportunities provided by the timbering operations allowed at least one or two generations of their sons and daughters to remain at home rather than having to leave the area to find employment. As has been recounted before, the timber cutting had negative impacts on the land and forests and there were certainly social impacts from the influx of people, some from other countries, that came with the railroad and timber development. But in terms of history this timber “boom” period was too short, only about sixty years, to radically change either the long-established economic or social situation in the Greenbrier Valley. (The major timbering was completed in less than thirty years.) As for the coming of people from other enthic groups to the valley during the timbering era, in the author’s opinion, at least, it is a shame that some of these new residents were not able to remain in order to provide a more diverse population today. Once the timber was cut, the departing timber companies and their employees did not leave behind an improvished population with no other way of making a living. Obviously, the economic boost provided by the mills was missed by many, but the agricultural base remained, as well as the railroad connecting the valley to the nation and various other improvements that had been put in place during the timbering period. Remaining from the boom timbering period were the two tanneries, the continuing lumber operation at Cass, and other smaller lumbering operations, which --- As the nation went into the Great Depression it may have been just as well for the people of the valley that the timber boom was over; the economic conditions of the 1930s would have brought it to a sudden halt. As it was the boom peaked before 1920 and the valley had been adjusting to The fact that today agriculture can support only a small part of the Greenbrier Valley‘s population has no connection with the timber development. Many other economic factors, both national and international, have brought about the major decrease in the number of people employed in farming. For this part of the state, it has even been suggested that the change of ownership from the lumber companies to the federal government for the Monongahela National Forest is a continuation of some type of evil land ownership by outside interests. This was certainly not the opinion of those alive at the time the cut-over land was being purchased by the federal government. Today, even though memories of the conditions of our forest land following timbering are almost gone, most people will probably agree that the existence of the Monongahela National Forest is a positive for the valley. Though it is true that the federal land might be considered to be owned “from afar,” the owners also include all of us who live in the valley. The land in the MNF is ours and open to all, a considerable difference from the company-owned land in much of the state, with the all too common “no trespassing” signs. Accusations that lumber companies were able to avoid the liability for the environmental impact they had on the land and then make a final profit by selling their cut-over land to the federal government is using a present-day attitude about corporate responsibility that generally did not exist at the time. Besides, we are far from prefect today in making corporations take responsibility for their
The Greenbrier Wilderness
E. D. Coontz
The miles of torn and wasted wood,
Where once a giant forest stood;
—– so dense with laurel and spruce
That the sun could seldom find excuse
To pierce these depths of woodland shade,
—- this wondrous woodland glad
Among deep-rooted trees of earth,
And Greenbrier’s soul was given birth
The waters pure and crystal clear,
With springs that burst from every where
But, there came that day of sacrifice
For this nature’s wooded paradise:
When man had laid his strings of steel,
That power the woodland soon must feel,
With ax and saw men followed fast,
To strip these hills of forests vast;
The few that failed to feel the stroke,
Beneath the hand of fire were broke,
The ghosts of trees stand here and there,
–rch by flame with branches bare.
What means that pile of rusted steel
That brush and bramble half conceal
What is that twisted coil of wire,
Half hidden in the boggish mire?
That crumbling pile of brick you see
Shows where the great boilers used to be
The pond – now home for croaking frogs,
Once covered by a thousand logs,
That grassy plot by yonder wood,
Shows where the horse’s stable stood
And just another ghastly scene,
That broken bridge ‘cross yonder stream
That tangled trail up yonder glen,
Was once the path of horse and men
Out here among the mossy stones,
We view a pile of bleaching bones,
A broken horse perhaps was shot,
His carcass left out here to rot,
Here two stones that mark a tomb,
Where some lone woods man met his doom,
A lonely grave o’er grown with grass
Is seen by few who daily pass.
Beneath the old abandoned grade,
The wood chuck burrows unafraid,
For nothing now disturbs his rest,
His domain here by far the best.
Out from a nook of sheltered shade,
The ruffed grouse struts all unafraid,
An eagle soars on dizzy heights
And owl voices stir upon the nights,
Ravens are talking on the hills,
Their voices mingling with the rills.
The mountains wrapped in slumber deep,
Silent rocks you soul to sleep,
Out here beneath the silent stars,
Now still – no hum of motor cars
What rest tired hearts so seldom meet,
No tramp of men on brick-paved street,
No rumbling of a noisy train,
To shake your nerves or wrack your brain.
The years have sped, the mills have died,
But they left their scars on every side,
A waste of briars and tangled vine,
Where once had stood the stately pine
Around yon green and grassy clump
The remnant of the rotting stump
Where nature once held regal sways
The herds man’s sheep come now to graze.
The camp with all its life is gone,
Some rotting boards are left alone,
Where voices rang now all is still,
For silent stands the noisy mill.
The woods-man’s voices all are dead,
Along the path where sportsmen tread.32hat period the pre-European settlement timber in the Upper Greenbrier Valley had been cut, almost down to every single tree. By the late 1800s and early 1900s the technology available to the lumber industry had made it very efficient in the removal of timber on a large scale. What was true in the Greenbrier Valley was also true in most of eastern West Virginia and much of the rest of the state during the same period. The state’s magnificent forests had been turned into boards, flooring, lath, pulpwood, tan bark, barrel staves, ship pins, shingles, utility poles, and forest floor litter well before nascent efforts to protect some of the nation’s pre-European settlement forests and introduce sustainable forestry practices had a foothold in this state.
The attitude of many towards the forest was that the timber supply was endless. In his 1911 book, Forestry and Wood Industries, published by the West Virginia Geological Survey, Alonzo B. Brooks summarized this feeling:
The need of preserving the forests of this country was not apparent to many persons 200 years ago. The pioneer settlers of our Eastern states built their homes in what they considered an almost boundless wilderness. Trees were regarded by them, naturally, as obstacles in the way of improvement, for they were removed with great labor and could not be sold or given away. The openings first made were insignificant in comparison with the vast woodlands which surrounded them. But this was not long the case. As the population increased and settlements were extended from year to year, the small cornfields were widened into extensive farms; fires began to take their toll from the forests in the region of settlements; and the occupation of lumbering began. In the course of time the various agents of destruction, working together, produced a serious condition in the forests. The condition was not readily observed because the people had not been trained to expect trouble from such a source. The conception that the forest was boundless and inexhaustible had been transmitted from one generation to another until it had become fixed in the minds of the inhabitants as a firm belief. With this inherited handicap, therefore, the present generations were slow in believing even what reason taught them was true.1
Brooks noted that West Virginia originally was almost unbroken forest covering more than 15.5 million acres and containing 150 billion feet of timber. At the time he was writing 60% of the state was still timbered. However, in 1910 there were 83 large band and about 900 portable sawmills operating with the capacity to cut all the timber in the state in the next 16 years. He predicted that by 1940 none of the band mills would be in operation due to the depletion of the timber.2
The lumber companies working in the Greenbrier Valley certainly seem to have operated under this belief of unlimited timber supply. Most came to West Virginia following the depletion of timber in other states and probably assumed they could move on to other areas after this state was cut over.
Arthur H. Winchester, who was an investor in West Virginia timber lands in the late 1800s (including the Cheat Mountain land that he purchased for Dewing and Sons that was later purchased by the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company), is reported to have stated in a hearing before the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representative in 1897 “We [West Virginia] don’t need scientific forestry down our way. The growth of our timber is so rapid that the forests restore themselves without artificial help as fast as they can be cut away.” What Winchester was claiming the state’s timber industry did need was the imposition of tariffs to protect it from cheaper lumber being imported from Canada.3
At least partially due to this attitude, during the period when the pre-settlement timber was being stripped from the mountainsides and valley land in the Upper Greenbrier Valley very little was done in the way of reforestation. The brief employment by the George Craig and Sons Lumber Company of a trained forester was related in the article on that company (see Winterburn, Chapter X). There are a few references to the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company making an effort to replant the area the company logged. One was in a news article at the time of absorption of the West Virginia Spruce Lumber Company into the parent company in 1909. The article included:
Another interesting feature of their operations has been the adoption of scientific forestry methods in their lumbering, which, according to their experience to date, assures them practically an inexhaustible supply of timber on their present holdings
Only the right timber has been logged, they are constantly replanting, and today they have 25,000 acres which has been logged over which is coming, both from seedling and young timber growth, to a condition which will permit of most profitable logging thereon again before they have anywhere near logged their entire premises.4
An article on the lumber operation at Cass in the American Lumberman in 1911 made a brief reference to replanting by W. Va. Pulp and Paper. Following comments on the company’s efforts to control fire, the article continues: “Only about 1500 of its 25,000 acres of the company’s cut over lands have been burned over and these are being carefully replanted, as are other areas where the young timber left is not sufficient to provide a heavy future growth. In replanting, the men pick up the small spruce which are to be found in abundance among the older timber and these are put into ground within twenty-four hours.”5
WVP&P wrote to Brooks in 1910 and reported the company had planted 25,000 spruce trees in 1909, with about 80% growing a year later, and 170,000 spruce and 2000 yellow poplars in 1910. In the letter the company expressed it great interest “in the reproduction of forests on our property and it is our present intention to do everything in our power in the future to save and propagate the timber.” The letter stated that timber under about ten inches was being left. “We confidently believe that if the fire can be kept out of the old slashing that our property will reproduce itself rapidly and that by the time we have lumbered over it, it will be possible to go over it again, and while of course we will not be able to secure the quantity of large lumber, we can make the crops perpetual for pulp.”6
However, other than these limited efforts – and WVP&P seems to have discontinued its reforestation program after a few years – the companies cutting the Greenbrier Valley timber did it with no particular thought to the future.
But, as always in judging the actions of those who came before us, we must be careful not to use the standards and knowledge of our time. Particularly, since in many parts of the world, including parts of environmentally “enlightened” North America, the forests are continued to be attacked as if they go on forever. Our ancestors could only see unending forests as they climbed to the top of each mountain – today we can see the entire earth virtually at once from space. Yet, we are generally behaving as a lumber company of 1900 without the excuse of limited vision. Our approach today to other natural resources, particularly oil and natural gas, is not much different. As the 21st Century gets underway we still seem to operate mainly on the belief that these resources are infinite.
The generation that is using “mountain top removal” for the production of coal is not exactly in a position to criticize those who clear cut the timber of our West Virginia mountains. The trees have regrown; the mountains will not. True, acres of ugliness did follow the timbering. Clear cut sites are not pretty and fires followed the logging in many areas, burning the left behind debris and in places burning off the eons-old accumulation of humus down to bare rock. But trees have regrown and even the areas of the worse fires are slowly healing. The ugliness and waste of mountain top removal will remain with us and the generations to come, forever.
Attitude was not the only reason for the “clear cut” timbering that was done; economics played a major role. Even lumbermen who may have had the foresight to realize that the amount of timber was finite were confined by the economics of the business. The average company held a relatively small amount of timber and reaching it required for most the major cost of building a railroad. There was no way a company could regain its expenses and pay its debts if it built a railroad some distance into a section of its holdings, take only part of the timber, and then remove the track, planning to relay it back a number of years later to take some additional timber. The only way to make money on the investment of money for timber, equipment, and railroad construction was to take it all. Only a few companies owned large enough amounts of timber land to be able to look forward to a return to the cut-over portion of their holdings.
In his 1908 article on forest land management in West Virginia, Max Rothkugel recommended the use of portable mills, 15,000 to 20,000 feet per day capacity, rather than large capacity mills, of up to 100,000 capacity. “Big mills with their large investment in equipment and in rails must disappear before management of the present stands can be practiced. With a comparatively small investment tied up in mills and railroads the forest can be constantly maintained in a productive condition and still a good interest percent on the original investment would be assured.”7
In the Upper Greenbrier Valley, the only companies with large enough land holdings to consider being able to recut their own land were St. Lawrence Boom and Manufacturing/Sherwood Companies, Greenbrier River Lumber Company, and West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company. There is no evidence that SLB&M/Sherwood ever made any effort in reforestation. GRLCo was mainly a land holding company for John McGraw and, other than the small amount cut in the early 1900s, sold its property to other lumber companies.
As noted before there are a few references to reforestation by WVP&P in early years. One of these is in the 1911 book, Forestry and Wood Industries. Under the Randolph County section, there is statement: “It is gratifying to note that at least one lumber company – the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company – is making extensive plantations of spruce trees on its cut-over lands near the head of Shavers Fork of Cheat river.” However, no evidence exists that the effort continued on a long-term basis. Mower Lumber did cut second growth timber on its former WVP&P land, but this was due to the efforts of Mother Nature and not planned reforestation.8
As early as the mid-1890s the logging had been going on for a sufficient length of time that the change it created in the landscape was becoming obvious. In early 1897 the Times made the following observation:
The disappearance of the logs and timbermen have made a great change in the appearance of things between Marlinton and Driscol. Our old acquaintances, the logs, will hardly be recognizable when they return in a year or two as furniture, goods-boxes and picture frames. It makes a great difference with logs, as well as boys, to go abroad, remain awhile and then come back to serve some useful or ornamental purpose.9
However, there were voices during the boom period expressing regret about the destruction of the area’s forests and concern about the future timber supply.
In 1898, even before the major logging had begun in the Greenbrier Valley, the West Virginia Board of Agriculture declared “Owing to the rapid destruction of our forests it is high time that something be done looking toward the preservation and protection of our timber land.”10
In a 1903 article on the operations of WVP&P on Cheat Mountain, Marlinton resident Norman Price commented, “It is a pity that the government did not set aside the forests about the headwaters of our rivers as a forest reserve.” However, he followed that sentence with “However the sacrifice of the trees has brought capital to be invested in the county, and therewith we must rest content.”11
On December 5, 1906, a traveling salesman of Sure Shot tobacco by the name of Ignatius Brennen sat on the end of a crosstie at Stony Bottom and wrote the following poem, presumably to his wife or girlfriend.

“In the Greenbrier Mountains”

With a pad on my knee, dear,
I’m penning to thee dear,
A line of myself emblamatic,
Through not sentimental,
Nor yet Continental,
But very much straight Democratic.

In the Greenbrier Mountains,
Where natural fountains,
Have slacked the wild deer of its thirsting,
I’m plying my trading,
And green haunts invading,
And quaffing from water to bursting.

When God made this Creation,
His intention, I’d reckon,
Was a home for the wild beasts and savage,
But the white man came onward,
Moonward and sunward,
Its fine virgin forests to ravage.

The forests depleted,
The rape is completed,
What nature held sacred has vanished,
The fawn and its mother,
And lo-the poor Indian, are banished.

The fir and the pine tree,
The hemlock and vine-tree,
Exchanges of sorrow are granting,
The fire-ravished hill-side,
The snake haunted rill-side,
Inanimate requiems are chanting.

The Greenbrier River,
Rolls on with a quiver,
Polluted with chemical lotion,
It hastes to connection,
In southwest direction,
Contented when lost in the ocean.

I turn back the pages,
And stop with the ages,
When nature was absolute master,
Then picture the white man,
(Lets hope he’s a right man),
Who wrough all this awful disaster.12

The author would love to know what brought about this outburst from Mr. Brennen (an early environmentalist?).  Perhaps "chemical lotion" referred to some discharge from the tannery at Frank?  It would seem something more likely to be written about twenty years later; in 1906 the stripping of the mountainsides of timber had only begun.
In an article written after logging was underway on the North Fork of the Cherry River, W. C. Dodrill described the impact on that watershed and compared it with the adjoining Cranberry River.  
An object lesson in the changed conditions brought about by cutting away the timber may be seen along the divide between Cherry and Cranberry.  On the Cherry side all the timber in some place has been cut down except the birch that is not of the best quality and a few, very few, other species that are worthless for lumber.  Worthless and broken logs strew the ground.  Tramway roads leading to the tops of the hills are found at short intervals.  Each rain cuts these deeper and washes away the humus that is so essential to plant life.  Nothing remains to remind one of the  greatness of this beautiful old forest but the decaying stumps.  By counting the ring growths of some of the black spruce stumps it was found that the tree had been nourished by the rains of more than 500 summers and had defied the storms of as many winters.  In this region destruction and desolation is depicted everywhere.
But what are the conditions existing on the other side of the divided where the woodman's axe has been withheld!  The forest admirer may wander for days among the grand old trees that have stood for centuries.  The ground is covered with a soft carpet of moss and decaying leaves.  The water that falls in the form of rain or snow gradually sinks into the ground.  What is not utilized by the trees seeks a lower level by a slow process.
Dodrill made note of the difference in water runoff between the two areas, with the Cherry nearly always muddy and the Cranberry nearly always clear; greater floods in the former and fewer in the later; also, more water in the Cranberry than the Cherry than the time of drought.  In noting that "Water supply is as much a question in the conservation of the forests as the timber supply.  One in a measure depends upon the other."  Dodrill was giving one of the arguments that lead to the creation of eastern national forests.
He also noted the lesser number of birds found on the Cherry since lumber operations began. Within two years. timbering is to begin on the Cranberry, Dodrill wrote, "When this occurs one of the most beautiful and picturesque  mountain streams in the Appalachian region will be robbed of its greatest glory . . . "13
A 1912 article in the Times with the title "Timber," it was noted that timber production was already more that thought possible and there was still a lot to be cut:
The lumberman have already taken from this county threes times as much timber as the highest guess ever made at it prior to the building of the railroad.  Three hundred million a year for the past ten years is a low estimate and three billion feet of lumber has been shipped from the mills and great areas of timber are not touched yet.  About one third of the timber has been cut is one guess at the present situation, though that runs the amount of timber to fabulous figures.  Just when the timber  of this county will give out is a hazy and uncertain period, and the subject is not a welcome one.14

At the time the timbering that would strip the Upper Greenbrier Valley of its trees was getting underway, there were the beginnings of national concern about the massive cutting of the nation's forests.  It was probably the removal of forests to provide land for agriculture that began the first concerns about whether the wanton destruction of forest land was a good thing.  It was "agriculturalists who saw and appreciated what clearing could do to the land itself, to the soil, the stream flow, the microclimate, and the fish and animal life."  As early as 1818 former President James Madison noted that all of the errors in the rural economy of the United States "none is so much to be regretted, perhaps because none is so difficult to repair, as the injurious and excessive destruction of timber and firewood."15
Madison was early in his concern about forest removal, but by the latter part of the Nineteenth Century there were a number of people expressing concern over the destruction of the forests, both for farms and lumber.  One of the first given credit for bringing attention to the rapid deforestation and it impacts was George Perkins Marsh with his book Man and Nature, published in 1864.  This is a remarkable book, considered by some to be the beginning of the modern environmental movement.  One of the most influencial books of its time, second perhaps only to one published five year's earlier, Darwin's Origin of Species.  The brief amount of space the author can give to Man and Nature in this writing cannot begin to -----     If one did not know the date it was published, the insight Marsh shows into environmental problems caused by our misuse of our resources reads like the date was 1964 rather than 100 years earlier.
Marsh was born in 1901 in the Green Mountains of Vermont, at Woodstock, at the time when the mountains were truly green.  He 

Spending five years in Turkey as  -- and then the last 21 years of his life as ambassador to Italy gave Marsh a close look how 

George Marsh delivered an address before the Agricultural Society of Rutland County, Vermont, on - - - -- - in 1847. Marsh had worn many hats over his lifetime: lawyer, journalist, sheep farmer, mill owner, linguistics scholar, and diplomat. He designed the Washington Monument and co-founded the Smithsonian Institution. But it was in his role as United States senator that he addressed the Agricultural Society. He was the first person to publicly raise the issue of manmade climate change, and his speech helped spark the conservation movement.
In his speech, Marsh said: "Man cannot at his pleasure command the rain and the sunshine, the wind and frost and snow, yet it is certain that climate itself has in many instances been gradually changed and ameliorated or deteriorated by human action. The draining of swamps and the clearing of forests perceptibly effect the evaporation from the earth [...] The same causes modify the electrical condition of the atmosphere and the power of the surface to reflect, absorb and radiate the rays of the sun, and consequently influence the distribution of light and heat, and the force and direction of the winds. Within narrow limits too, domestic fires and artificial structures create and diffuse increased warmth, to an extent that may effect vegetation." He was talking about concepts familiar to us now as the urban heat island effect and the greenhouse effect.
As a result of his speech, Marsh went on to publish a book titled Man and Nature: or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action (1864). "[M]an is everywhere a disturbing agent," Marsh wrote. "Wherever he plants his foot, the harmonies of nature are turned to discords. The proportions and accommodations which insured the stability of existing arrangements are overthrown. Indigenous vegetable and animal species are extirpated, and supplanted by others of foreign origin, spontaneous production is forbidden or restricted, and the face of the earth is either laid bare or covered with a new and reluctant growth of vegetable forms, and with alien tribes of animal life.
 Marsh's book was used by those with a growing realization of the for government owned forest reserves to support their case.  These efforts resulted in the first national forests being established in the 1890s.  These actions followed the passage of the Forest Reserve Act in 1891 authorizing the president to set aside forest reserves from the public domain.  At first these lands were managed by the Department of the Interior.  Also in 1891, a Division of Forestry was created within the Department of Agriculture.  In 1905 the  Forestry Bureau was renamed the Forest Service and the forest reserves came under its  jurisdiction.  Clifford Pinchot was the first head of the USFS.

Moving to the state level, in the early 1900s some actions were beginning for the protection of the state’s forest lands.
In 1906, a pamphlet entitled The Needs of Forest Protection in West Virginia and Suggestions for a Forest Law was published by Hu Maxwell. He noted the value of the state’s forests for timber and influence on erosion and water flow, their destruction by fire and careless lumbering, and lack of action to prevent waste. However, the law proposed in the pamphlet was considered in the 1907 Legislature but failed to pass.16  
Governor William Dawson appointed a three-member Conservation Commission in 1908, with Maxwell as one of the members.  The Commission’s report, published in the fall of that year, devoted a major part to a discussion of the forest resources of the state and made recommendations for policies to protect these resources.17       
also in 1908? West Virginia University established a Chair of Forestry as a department in its College of Agriculture and selected A. W. Nolan as the school’s first professor of forestry - Brooks, p 361-2  

The West Virginia Forestry Association was organized at a meeting in January 1908 at WVU by representatives from 23 counties of the state   Brooks p 362
PT, 3/12/1908 - meeting was on Jan. 24, reference in the article to the new department of forestry at WVU, Prof. A. W. Nolan, professor in charge of the new department, elected secretary of the WVFA - objects of the new group  included: conservation of forest resources of the state; bring about better state laws for conserving and utilizing forests; take steps to reforesting denuded lands and exempting of woodlands from taxation; encourage tree planting; educate youth to appreciate the economic as well as esthetic value of trees

In Forestry Quarterly, Vol. VI, p 329, from Southern Lumberman, 2/15/1908, W. Va. has

1. added a forestry school the state university
2. a state forestry association has been formed
3. State Board of Trade has appointed a committee to draft forest laws and police for the Legislature at its next session In the early 1900s, just as the timbering boom in the Greenbrier Valley was getting up a full head of steam, The Pocahontas Times printed two articles which warned of the rate at which the nation was cutting its timber resource.
   The first was in 1907 with the reprint of an article by an U. S. Department of Agriculture forester, Overton W. Price. Price began his article by noting that the lumber industry in the United States ranked fourth among the manufacturing industries of the country, producing products with an annual value of $566,090,000 and providing employment for considerably more than a million people. He noted rapid improvements in tools and machinery that had taken place in the industry in the previous fifty years. “In effective methods for the harvesting and manufacturing of lumber, the American lumberman has no superior, . . .”
   However, Price quickly got to the main point of his article which was that the rapid development of the industry “has been fundamentally unsound in principle” and was heading for failure due to the rate at which it was depleting the resource upon which it depended. “The havoc which has been wrought in the forest of the United States has turned trees into money, but the balance on the wrong side of the sheet by rendering vast areas unproductive.” The sentence quoted in the last paragraph concluded “nor is he equaled in his disregard for the future of the forest which he cuts.” Price noted that although with the data then available “there is no way to foretell accurately the time necessary to exhaust this supply of merchantable timber,” he supports his argument about the dangers to the future of the lumber industry by noting that already were the supplies of timber of some species were failing and some almost exhausted. He gave as examples black walnut, white pine (“growing rapidly to be a rarity on the market”) and spruce for pulpwood. The list of species once considered valueless were being harvested more and being accepted as merchantable due to the exhaustion of more valuable kinds, Price wrote.
   “It is natural that the lumberman should not turn eagerly from a system whose only aim is to secure the highest possible present profit from the forest to one which includes provisions for the production of a second crop from the lumbered area,” Price stated. However, he wrote that the time for “practical forestry has fully arrived.”18 The second article in the paper was excerpts from a 1909 report issued by the U. S. Forest Service, “The Timber Supply of the United States,” that claimed that the nation was cutting its forests faster than the annual growth. The report stated the nation was cutting its forests three times as fast as new timber was growing. “There is menace in the continuance of such conditions. While we might never reach absolute timber exhaustion, the unrestricted exploitation of our forests in the past has already had serious effects and it will have worse if it is allowed to continue unchecked.” White pine was used as one of the examples in the report. “White pine, for instance, which was once considered inexhausible, has fallen off seventy per cent in cut since 1890, and more than forty-five per cent since 1900.”
   The report noted “The fact that timber has been cheap and abundant has made us careless of its production and reckless in its use.” It went on to give the example of Germany which was managing its forests so that wood growth exceeded timber production. “But to reach the necessary condition of equilibrium between timber production and consumption will take many years of vigorous effort by individual forest owners, by the States, and by the National Government. None of them can solve the problem alone; all must work together.”19
   The office of Forest, Game, and Fish Warden was created by the Legislature in 1909, to replace the existing Fish and Game Warden position. J. A. Viquesney was appointed to the new position. The 1909 law also called for forest protection and research and provided for punishment of individuals and company owners who intentionally or carelessly set forest fires.20
   In his 1911 book, Brooks surveyed what other states were doing to protect their forests and made a number of recommendations. The first was for the appointment of a state forester with duties in the areas of education, advice to private land owners, forest fire control, collection of data on forest and forest industries, and determining whether state-owned lands should be retained for forestry purposes. To encourage tree planting he recommended a law that would exempt from taxes for a period of years land that is planted to carefully prepared specifications or provide for a scale of rebates on such lands. Also recommended was for the state to agree to the acquisition of land by the federal government for a national forest.21
   In an article in American Forestry magazine in 1913, Merritt Wilson, a West Virginia lumberman, wrote that unless the effort is made “to protect the growing timber and reforest the cutover lands of West Virginia that the lumber industry, one of the leading industries of our state, will soon be almost a thing of the past. The uncut area is getting smaller every year and it would seem that the only way to have a supply for the future is to grow it.” He noted that this state is “perhaps as well adapted to growing timber as any State east of the Mississippi river, unless it is Maine, and while it is well adapted to growing timber, much of the area is of little value for anything else, owing to the rough and mountainous character of the country.” Later in his article, Wilson gave his estimate of 12,000 square miles of the state “better adapted for growing timber than anything else.”
   Wilson recommended the creation of a state Forestry Commission with the power to buy cut-over lands. Like Brooks, he also recommended using the tax laws to encourage the setting aside of land for reforestation.
   He stressed that fire was the greatest threat to growing new forests. He noted that the cause of most forest fires were sparks from railroad and logging company locomotives and fires set by farmers to make more range for livestock, as well fires set by those who just want to see the woods burn. Lack of care by the railroad companies came under particular criticism from Wilson. “It is our opinion that companies and individuals carelessly letting fires get started should be made to pay damages for any timber and other property destroyed.”22
   At the national level forested lands were being protected in the growing national forest system. However, all the first national forests had to be located in the west, as that is where the federal government owned land. The government had no authority to purchase private land for preserves. Following the establishment of the national forests in the west, efforts began to have legislation passed to allow the establishment of federal forest reserves in the Appalachians. Those in favor stressed the importance of forests in preventing flooding and siltation and regulation of stream flow. Following bad flooding in 1907 with millions of dollars of damages along the Monongahela and Ohio Rivers, the role of the cutover mountains in the headwaters in making the situation worse became obvious. Finally in 1911 Congress passed the Weeks Act which authorized the federal purchase of forests to protect the headwaters of navigable streams.
   The first purchase within West Virginia for national forest purpose was in Tucker County in 1915. In 1920 the Monongahela purchase area was proclaimed as the Monongahela National Forest. The first property purchased for the MNF in the Greenbrier Valley was from the George Craig and Sons Lumber Company in April 1923. The tract contained 9,674 acres on — 23 The State of West Virginia was also taking additional action to protect the state’s forest lands. In 1921 the West Virginia Game and Fish Commission was created for the purpose of — need copy of law The first tracts purchased by the Commission were in the Greenbrier Valley. In January 1924 A. D. Neill sold 10,847 acres to the Commission and a year later 4,546 acres were purchased from the Watoga Land Association. Today the former tract makes up most of Seneca State Forest and the other about half of Watoga State Park.24
   As related in the articles on the individual lumber companies, most of their lands went into government ownership after being cut. In 2011 the Monongahela National Forest owns —- acres in Greenbrier and Pocahontas Counties and state parks and forests make up another —- acres of mostly former lumber company land.
   The Fish and Game Commission also had responsibilities for a forest fire protection system. Perhaps find somewhere in the fire discussion to fit in quotes from:
   PT, 10/31/1901 – “This section has been scourged with fires several times within the past two years where forest fires were never known before, the woods being too dense and damp to burn, but with the opening up of farms and the cutting of the timber the woods are becoming dry.” from article on a fire on Laurel Creek (of Williams River)
   PT, 11/5/1931 – Forest fires burned 64,110 acres in the county, January 1922 to January 1931 – estimated timber damage, $135,984 PT, 10/15/1914 Lookout stations in Pocahontas County were on Marlin Mountain at Mt. View Orchard, Briery Knob, and Bald Knob. “The country covered by the Marlin Mountain lookout is the Greenbrier Valley from the Alleghany top to the top of the high dividing ridge between the Greenbrier, and Cheat, Elk, Williams and Cranberry, as far north as Cass and as far south as Spice Run.” Shawkey, p 286, F&G C installed 34 steel fire towers “within past five years” – “put nearly one-half of the timber area of the State, which is seriously subject to forest fires, under the observation of the rangers who are on duty constantly during the dry weather periods of the year.” Despite all the human tragedy associated with the Great Depression of the 1930s, it reduced the demand for timber and thus reduced the amount of cutting, giving forests the opportunity to recover from the over cutting of the previous half-century. Marginal farm land was abandoned as the nation slid into depression and allowed to return to timberland.
   The Depression also produced also one of the most important conservation efforts in the nation’s history, the Civilian Conservation Corps. Within the geographic area covered by this writing a total of fourteen CCC camps were established. Some had a brief existence while others were open for almost the entire period of the CCC program. All did work in the areas of reforestation, forest fire control, development of parks —- that are still obvious today.25 In 1933 the W. Va. Legislature replaced the Forest, Game and Fish Commission with the Conservation Commission (now the Department of Natural Resources) — allow state to work with the CCC – This law also established the position of state forester — need law At West Virginia University, the Chair of Forestry became the School of Forestry in 1935 — check details The good work of natural forces, with the human assistance related above, have restored the forests to the mountains and bottom lands of the Greenbrier Valley and at first glance they would look very familiar to any early settler who might by some way be able to return to the valley. Obviously, the vast acres of cleared farmland would be different than the few small clearings found by the original settlers, but the forested mountains would seem the same. As was the case 300 years ago, there is a progression of tree species as altitude changes, with the spruce on the highest ridges.
   However, differences would be quickly noticed by our reincarnated pioneer. Today’s forest of second and third growth trees would look much different than the mostly mature forest found by the early settlers. The proportion of the various species would be considerably different now, with some species found by the original settlers non-existent or greatly reduced in extent.
   Some of the differences in today’s forest from the forest that existed 300 years ago are the natural changes that occur when forests regrow from a disturbance. At one time it was believed that the climax forest in a given area was permanent; following a destruction of a section of forest, the eventual mature forest would be the same as was there before. This has found not to be the case since it takes up to hundreds of years for a forest to become mature and conditions of climate and other factors affecting forests are not the same over time. Other changes from the forest the first Europeans found are more directly the result of human activity.
   One difference is the acreages of white pine, red spruce, and hemlock are much reduced from the forest the first settlers found. Whether this is a temporary condition as the forests recover from the clear-cut logging operations and grow their way towards maturity (assuming we would let them do this) or a permanent change in our forests, only time will tell.
   As the lumbering operations were just getting underway, nature was making changes in the forests. In the documents in a — court case was the following statement by Daniel O’Connell:
   Respondent further states that whether it is generally known or not, it is a fact, that Pine timber in that section within the last two years has been seriously prayed upon by a insect styled amongst lumbermen as “the bug”.
   Mr. Brewer, as the respondent is informed and believes, becoming uneasy lest some of his pine timber should be lost to him on account of this insect decided to cut some of the timber of that character standing upon these lands during the present [1893-94] logging season.26
   The writer of a news item in January 1895 noted “Everything has combined against lumbering the past few years. Bugs destroyed the timber, the rains ceased, and the price has fallen.”27
   “The bug” referred by O’Connell is the southern pine beetle (Dendroctonus frontalis). This insect is one of the most destructive insects of pines in the southern United States

Forestry Quarterly, Vol IX, 1911, No. 3, September 1911 – a news note on the southern pine beetle states “It appears, however, that only at long intervals does it increase to such numbers as to cause widespread depredations, such as, for example, the great invasion of 1890 – 1893 in the Virginias.”

CWP, PT, 12/19/1935, refers to the southern pine beetle taking out the yellow pine east of the GR "more than forty years ago"  "I remember being taken to a high mountain to look out over the Greenbrier peniplain (sic) and to see vast stretches of country brown as a sheep skin form the dead pines.  This tree was superceded (sic) by the oaks, soft maple, hickory, and where the ground was too thin for better species of trees, chinquepin oak and bull pine."

At least the southern pine beetle is a natural part of the North American ecosystem and the native trees have evolved ways to survive attacks by it.  Unfortunately, such is not the case with imported dangers to the forests, where the native tree species have no natural protection.
One of the first things our returnee would probably notice is something that is not present in today’s forest - the magnificent American chestnut tree.  Although to the settler most species were just trees that were in the way of establishing farms, the chestnut was a tree of great usefulness, both for its wood and its nuts that provided food for both man and animal.  The absence of this tree is due to a natural cause, but it is humans and not nature that must take the blame.
In the early 1900s, as the timbering in the valley was at its most intensive, the chestnut was under attack from a foreigner invader.  Chinese chestnut trees imported from Asia for nursery stock brought with them a fungus that the native chestnut trees had no resistance to.  In 1904 it was noticed that trees in the New York Zoological Park were dying.  The spores of the fungus were carried by wind, bird, insects, and people throughout the tree’s range in the Appalachian Mountains.  By 1910 American chestnut trees were dying across Pennsylvania and the blight was moving south at a rate of 50 miles a year.  All efforts to stop the blight failed and by the 1950s the tree was virtually gone from Appalachian forests.
  There is some hope for the future of the American chestnut as a feature of the Appalachian forests.  Even today chestnuts will grow from roots of long dead trees.  However, before long the youthful chestnut succumb to the blight.  But research efforts have been underway for a number of years to cross-breed with the blight resistant Chinese chestnut and eventually produce an American chestnut that is also blight resistant.    
Chestnut blight is itself merely the most dramatic symptom of epidemic in Appalachian forest, one that came in with the twentieth century but has hardly run its course.  The globalization of the world’s economy is being accompanied by a less beneficial globalization of its ecology.  International trade has opened the doors to some very undesirable immigrants.  Brought in purposely for one reason or another, or unintentionally on lumber, furniture, exotic plants, and sundry other imports, more than a dozen introduced pests and diseases now assail Appalachia.28   
Another example of an “on purpose” human decision that has resulted in a curse to our forests was bringing the gypsy moth, a native of Europe, to this country in -1869 -- 1868 -- in hopes of using it for silk production.  Some escaped into the wild and trees began to die due to the defoliation caused by the gypsy moth caterpillars.  From the initial defoliation in Massachusetts in 1889, the moth has moved its way south and west, reaching West Virginia in ----.  Oak trees, valuable to both wildlife and timberman, have been particularly impacted by the gypsy moth.  The moths are also partial to beech, pines, and hemlock.
One author recently wrote that “if gypsy moths continue their recurrent pattern of eating all the oaks they can find, other species of trees will take over the dominance of the forests.  That will mean fewer acorns, which now serve as the main substitute for chestnuts as wildlife food.  The number of wild animals that Appalachian forests can support will take another sharp dip.”29 
Fortunately, there is some good news with regard to this pest.  A fungus from Japan has been found that attacks only the gypsy moth and has reduced the amount of acres defoliated by ---

A pioneer returning to the valley a few years from now will probably find another of tree species common in his time, the hemlock, to be missing.  Hemlock has made up a smaller percentage of second growth forest and now a tiny, less than 1/16th of an inch, Asian import, the hemlock woolly adelgid, is threatening to eliminate these magnificent trees from the forests of the eastern United States.  It was first found found in 1951 in Richmond, Virginia, in a hemlock tree near Maymont Park.  The park was originally a private estate and it is believed the insect may have come to this country with the establishment on the estate of a Japanese garden in 1911.30
There was no particular concern about this pest until the late 1980s when was found in a stand of hemlocks outside of the city.  About the same time hemlocks were found to be invested with the woolly adelgid in Shenandoah National Park in Northern Virginia.  By the mid-1990s most of hemlocks in the park were dead.  The pest has been working its way north, west and south and is now found in sixteen states, covering about half the range of the two hemlock species in the east.  In West Virginia, the insect has invaded almost half of the state’s counties. After being infected, a hemlock will die in about three years.  There is a chemical treatment but it is expensive to apply and and repeated treatments are needed.  

Another disease caused by an import is white pine blister rust, caused by a fungus that came to ---

The spruce budworm, coming from ----, attacks spruce, firs, tamarack, hemlocks, and pines.

In recent decades even more horrors have come to the forests.  These include:
* Dogwood Anthracnose
* Balsam Woolly Aphid 
* Adelges piceae
* Dutch Bark Disease
* Butternut Canker
* Oak Wilt 
* Sudden Oak Death, Asian longhorn beetle, emerald ash borer

Sullivan, Rose, New Threats to Mountain State Trees Emerge, WV Wildlife Diversity News, WV DNR, Vol. 19 , No. 4, Winter 2003

Invasive plants impacting forests include:
* autumn olive
* multiflora rose
* tree of heaven 
* barberry
* crown vetch
* garlic mustard
* Asiatic bittersweet
The fewer acres of white pine, spruce, and hemlock, mentioned before, would be a direct result of the lumbering operations. The white pine, the dominate species at lower elevations to the east of the river, now exists only in scattered stands. In its place today are -------    

The fires that followed the logging were severe enough in some areas to burn away, not only the debris left behind by the loggers, but the soil itself, leaving only bedrock.  Recovery of these areas is, of course, taking longer --

Air pollution has placed a strain on the 

 acid rain - soil nutrient depletion 

Another environmental factor that is determining the future of our forests is climate change caused by global warming.  While the argument goes on about about much of this is to be blamed on man’s activities (among politicians, not reputable scientists), the forests of the Greenbrier Valley, as elsewhere, are slowly changing under its impact.

Dan Lewerenz, Associated Press, article in Charleston Gazette, 6/13/2003, "Oaks decline, maples move in", on decline of oaks, increase in maples.  Reasons given are (1) fire suppression.  Maples sensitive to fire and few used to survive ground fires - oaks use fire as part of natural regeneration.  (2) decrease in soil quantity and quality.  Soils washed away following clear cutting of 100 years ago and soil polluted by acid rain and stripped of important elements - maples more tolerant of acidic soils .  (3) deer population increase. Deer would rather eat oak than maple.

Another difference in today's forests as compared to what the original settlers found is in the areas where spruce timber is found.  Although it hard to distinguish much of the trees today are Norway spruce rather than the native red spruce.  This is another change based on decisions made by those concerned with the future of forests.  Starting with Rothkugel, Norway spruce has been used for replanting areas where red spruce was the native tree - 

need to find out how much Norway spruce seeding was done and how much of today’s spruce is red and how much Norway – need to confirm that Norway does a better job of surviving the conditions found in cut-over and often burned-over forest land as claimed in Carvel, “Arboreal Mysteries Unraveled”

But I should not end on a pessimistic note.  Change is part of the natural scheme and will continue as long as this planet exists.  How much the activities of humans have sped up and otherwise impacted this change is a matter of debate among scientists and politicians (more among the latter).  Hopefully, before too many more years pass the so-called “intelligent” species will move from decision making based mostly on self-interest and short-term goals to more thoughts for the future of our fragile earth and the best-interest of our children and grandchildren.   
As for our forests, words written in a February 1, 1905, letter from Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson to Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot, are as true today as when written,
“In the administration of the forest reserves it must be clearly borne in mind that all land is to be devoted to its most productive use of the permanent good of the whole people, and not for the temporary benefit of individuals or companies . . . 
“. . . where conflicting interests must be reconciled the question will always be decided from he standpoint of the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run.”31 
Although, as related in the previous pages, the timbermen of the late 1800s and early 1900s did a very tho--- job of removing the trees from the Greenbrier Valley, virgin timber does exist in a few areas.  The easiest to access is the Gaudineer Knob ----- .  Here --- acres of timber were saved from the lumberman's axe and saw by ------

Baun refers to "A virgin forest area some three miles east of Linwood at the southern end of Back Allegheny Mountain (where it joins the southern end of Cheat Mountain) ...." p 82
Baun has photo on p 80 of virgin white oak near Anthonys Creek - Virginians for Wilderness website, http://asecular.com/forests/anthonycr.htm, Old Growth/Anthony Creek, locates what it thinks is on the east-facing slope just west of the North Fork

A. Price, PT, 12/28/1916, “A forest is a long time in growing, but they do grow.”

PT, 4/7/1927 article on the Upper Tract. “The Upper Tract has in it now the large and important town of Durbin, and one of the big tanneries of the country, but for the most part the land is regaining its wilderness estate, and soon it will be an ideal retreat for the lovers of nature, who will find all the delights of the forest and stream. Time will heal the hurts made by the timber operations, and the experts of the National Forest aid materially in its rejuvenation.”

Although this book is not intended to be a social history of this part of West Virginia, the author feels it would be irresponsible not to comment on some of the recent writings and books about the impact on the development of the natural resources of West Virginia has had on the people of the state and its environment.  The usual theme of these books and articles is that it was a disaster, leaving behind an exploited and dispirited people, unable to cope with modern life and a ruined landscape.  This analysis has been extended to all regions of the state and all resources, including the timbering in the Greenbrier Valley.
Some of these writings, quite frankly, contain historical mistakes about the Greenbrier Valley which show a lack of historical research (or an interpretation of research to meet pre-conceived conclusions).  Much of what the writers have said about the impact of development and the actions of developers (past and present) is true, but much is also total imagination.

For the coal producing regions of West Virginia, much of what is written about the impacts of development on the land and people is, unfortunately true.  However, the Greenbrier Valley and other parts of eastern West Virginia ---

There is no argument that the timbering that took place from the late 1800s to about 1930 had major environmental impacts.  This has been a major theme in this chapter.  It is in discussing the impact on the people and society of the valley that recent authors have gone greatly off base.
What is forgotten by these writers is that the valley had a long-established, viable economic base and settled population, based on agriculture, prior to the timber development, unlike much of the coal producing regions of the state, where the coal development was the first and virtually only aspect of the economy.  The people of the Greenbrier Valley were not the stereotype “hillbillies” of books, movies, and recent social studies of the Appalachian Mountain states, but as educated -- as any  --

In Pocahontas County, for example, three, not one, but three, preparatory schools for the University of Virginia were established in the 1840s.  As related in Chapter I, by the time of the Civil War, a series of turnpikes connected the valley with the rest of Virginia.  Lewisburg was an educational center 

 The land purchased by the lumber companies was of little value to the agricultural based economy of the Greenbrier Valley.  (References to the cost of removing timber to convert land to farm use were made in Chapter I.)  The companies did not purchase land being used for agriculture (why would they?), except for sites along the railroad needed for the mills and mill towns.  Generally most of these sites went back to agricultural use after the mills closed and remain so today.  Did the local landowners get as much as they should have for their timber and timber land?  Perhaps not, but this is a question that cannot be answered with certainty now.  Getting any income from land that was useless for your main economic activity can only be considered a positive.  (Considering the number of lumber company bankruptcies, some folks may have gotten too much for their timber.)
The major tracts of land acquired for the lumber companies were not stolen from a group of illiterate farmers.  Most of the timber acreage had been in the hands of speculators from “day one” and passed from one group to another over the years.

The needs of the lumber companies for food provided a new market for the farmers in the valley and the C&O provided easier access to distant markets. The jobs and business opportunities provided by the timbering operations allowed at least one or two generations of their sons and daughters to remain at home rather than having to leave the area to find employment.  

As has been recounted before, the timber cutting had negative impacts on the land and forests and there were certainly social impacts from the influx of people, some from other countries, that came with the railroad and timber development.  But in terms of history this timber “boom” period was too short, only about sixty years, to radically change either the long-established economic or social situation in the Greenbrier Valley.  (The major timbering was completed in less than thirty years.)
As for the coming of people from other enthic groups to the valley during the timbering era, in the author’s opinion, at least, it is a shame that some of these new residents were not able to remain in order to provide a more diverse population today.
Once the timber was cut, the departing timber companies and their employees did not leave behind an improvished population with no other way of making a living.  Obviously, the economic boost provided by the mills was missed by many, but the agricultural base remained, as well as the railroad connecting the valley to the nation and various other improvements that had been put in place during the timbering period.
Remaining from the boom timbering period were the two tanneries, the continuing lumber operation at Cass, and other smaller lumbering operations, which ---

As the nation went into the Great Depression it may have been just as well for the people of the valley that the timber boom was over; the economic conditions of the 1930s would have brought it to a sudden halt.  As it was the boom peaked before 1920 and the valley had been adjusting to 

The fact that today agriculture can support only a small part of the Greenbrier Valley‘s population has no connection with the timber development. Many other economic factors, both national and international, have brought about the major decrease in the number of people employed in farming.

For this part of the state, it has even been suggested that the change of ownership from the lumber companies to the federal government for the Monongahela National Forest is a continuation of some type of evil land ownership by outside interests.   This was certainly not the opinion of those alive at the time the cut-over land was being purchased by the federal government. 

Today, even though memories of the conditions of our forest land following timbering are almost gone, most people will probably agree that the existence of the Monongahela National Forest is a positive for the valley.  Though it is true that the federal land might be considered to be owned “from afar,” the owners also include all of us who live in the valley.  The land in the MNF is ours and open to all, a considerable difference from the company-owned land in much of the state, with the all too common “no trespassing” signs.
Accusations that lumber companies were able to avoid the liability for the environmental impact they had on the land and then make a final profit by selling their cut-over land to the federal government is using a present-day attitude about corporate responsibility that generally did not exist at the time.  Besides, we are far from prefect today in making corporations take responsibility for their

The Greenbrier Wilderness
E. D. Coontz

The miles of torn and wasted wood,
Where once a giant forest stood;
—– so dense with laurel and spruce
That the sun could seldom find excuse
To pierce these depths of woodland shade,
—- this wondrous woodland glad
Among deep-rooted trees of earth,
And Greenbrier’s soul was given birth
The waters pure and crystal clear,
With springs that burst from every where
But, there came that day of sacrifice
For this nature’s wooded paradise:
When man had laid his strings of steel,
That power the woodland soon must feel,
With ax and saw men followed fast,
To strip these hills of forests vast;
The few that failed to feel the stroke,
Beneath the hand of fire were broke,
The ghosts of trees stand here and there,
–rch by flame with branches bare.

What means that pile of rusted steel
That brush and bramble half conceal
What is that twisted coil of wire,
Half hidden in the boggish mire?

That crumbling pile of brick you see
Shows where the great boilers used to be
The pond – now home for croaking frogs,
Once covered by a thousand logs,
That grassy plot by yonder wood,
Shows where the horse’s stable stood
And just another ghastly scene,
That broken bridge ‘cross yonder stream
That tangled trail up yonder glen,
Was once the path of horse and men

Out here among the mossy stones,
We view a pile of bleaching bones,
A broken horse perhaps was shot,
His carcass left out here to rot,
Here two stones that mark a tomb,
Where some lone woods man met his doom,
A lonely grave o’er grown with grass
Is seen by few who daily pass.

Beneath the old abandoned grade,
The wood chuck burrows unafraid,
For nothing now disturbs his rest,
His domain here by far the best.

Out from a nook of sheltered shade,
The ruffed grouse struts all unafraid,
An eagle soars on dizzy heights
And owl voices stir upon the nights,
Ravens are talking on the hills,
Their voices mingling with the rills.

The mountains wrapped in slumber deep,
Silent rocks you soul to sleep,
Out here beneath the silent stars,
Now still – no hum of motor cars
What rest tired hearts so seldom meet,
No tramp of men on brick-paved street,
No rumbling of a noisy train,
To shake your nerves or wrack your brain.

The years have sped, the mills have died,
But they left their scars on every side,
A waste of briars and tangled vine,
Where once had stood the stately pine
Around yon green and grassy clump
The remnant of the rotting stump
Where nature once held regal sways
The herds man’s sheep come now to graze.

The camp with all its life is gone,
Some rotting boards are left alone,
Where voices rang now all is still,
For silent stands the noisy mill.
The woods-man’s voices all are dead,
Along the path where sportsmen tread.32