Local history opinions

Local history opinions

       There won’t be a test.

            In one of the old history books I read about when Europeans first looked upon your land and the Crossville area in general (from Spencer Mountain as I recall), the land then (around 1800) was generally prairie land, with Elk and Eastern Buffalo (now extinct) grazing.

           

            Hard to believe now in east Tennessee.

           

            Even where I live at the Hemlocks was generally open land (for either agriculture or grazing) as recently as a century ago. It was originally open mostly because of fires either set by lightning or the local Indians (fire kills hardwoods).  Later it was more often open from the hard efforts of clearing land by our ancestors. Now the Hollows were still more primitive, and full of the woods we often see today, with one exception.  The Chestnut blight changed the local woods forever.  Since the blight (beginning in the early 20th century in NYC from a boat from China), it seems like maple trees are now invading the Cumberland Plateau.

 

            Last, I still have some Chestnut trees still growing up from old roots, but eventually the blight (a fungus in the soil) kills them, usually about 5 years after they start making mast. Since chestnut trees are inherently self sterile, there are still chestnut trees trying to survive around here. In other words, hope is not good for the traditional American Chestnut Tree as the overall results dwindle down in 2013. And it does burn OK in the wood stoves I have since I don’t let dead trees go to waste.

 

            Back to buffaloes.

 

                        The "woods buffalo" I call the "eastern buffalo. The stories I read suggest the last herd of "eastern buffalo" that was living in a Hollow in Kentucky was killed off once discovered by the locals, whom I suspect ate them, but don't really know for sure.

 

            So all the buffaloes we see today are the western/plains buffaloes, or so I also believe.

 

            That the existing buffalo herds we now see were originally bred out of a very small remaining  group has profound genetic consequences,  I also suspect.

            Only time will tell.