Under a spreading chestnut tree
The village smithy stands,
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.
You probably had to memorize the Village Blacksmith by HenryW. Longfellow if you are older than forty. The above first verse from atotal of eight was written in 1872 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The American Chestnut, up to about 1920, was the most important treein the Appalachian Mountains and their foothills from New England to southwesternGeorgia and west to the Mississippi River. They were very common in southeasternOhio where they were found on the ridges and places of good drainage.
Up to about a month ago, I had the idea that the nearest naturalgrowth of the chestnut was the Mohican and Clear Fork areas southeast ofMansfield. David Einsel recently told me about gathering chestnuts in the1930’s on a “high” ridge at his homeplace 3-4 miles north of Tiffin.
Joseph Kuebler planted two American Chestnuts in his yard at 194Riverside Drive in 1887 or 1888. Maybe these trees came from the Einselarea. The surviving 56 year old Kuebler tree probably originated from thisstock.
My students and I have spent many hours of research on the Kueblertree. With Kent Chidester’s help, we made several grafts onto Chinese Chestnutroot stock. We also tried cloning by rooting small branches. Several seedlingsnow exist from this parent tree.
Near the turn of the century an Asian fungus was accidentally introducedinto the Bronx Zoo area of New York. That left largely slender blight-infestedtrees and haunting gray specters of this once stately tree which once numberedin the millions, if not billions.
As a young boy walking on a country road in West Virginia, I canremember seeing the last of the dying trees in the late thirties. The wind-blownfungus spread throughout the chestnut range, and by 1940, they were gone.The fungus did not affect the root system and root sprouts still come uparound the old decaying stumps. After a few years these saplings die.
The wood grain is very even, and the logs are easily split. In Appalachiamost of the log cabins and other outbuildings were made of chestnut. Zig-Zagfences derived from the split logs were once a common sight. Some of thesefences, perhaps more than a hundred years old, can still be seen in backwoodscountry. Watch for them in the Smokies or along the Blue-Ridge Parkway.The wood, like redwood, is very durable and was also used for fence posts,railroad ties, shingles, cradles, and coffins.
It was the major wood used in the kitchen stoves and in fireplaceswhere it popped a lot because of pockets of gas in the wood which suddenlyexploded. Because of this characteristic, an old verse went something likethis:
When I die and am taken away,
Bury me in a chestnut coffin,
So I’ll go through hell a poppin’!
It was also the major wood used by moonshiners since it burned hotand was smokeless.
Chestnuts are very nutritious and are still a staple in Europe andAsia. It was a very significant food for our Indians and settlers. Peopleate the nuts, and they ate what ate the nuts such as wild turkey, deer,bear, and squirrel. In the fall the farmers would turn their hogs intothe woods to fatten.
Is the American Chestnut, Castanea dentata, a species that has existedfor 40 million years and at a time represented 25% of the trees in theforest of eastern U.S. doomed to extinction?
–Percy Lilly