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OT Native American Trail Marker Trees.......

8

8Nr--WI

Member
I read recently some info about research being done about a system of trail marking trees that was established and used by Native Americans throughout much of the country.

There are quite a few in the upper midwest. This is a picture of one on my property. The tree has a 30" diameter at the base. Anyone else know where any others are?

Tim
a139332.jpg
 
If it only has a 30" base I doubt very seriously that it was an Indian Trail marker.There are plenty of trees around bigger that are in the 50 to 75 year old range.
 
I don't know about trail markers but where I use to live there was a creek and had high banks along it. On the top of this bank was a foot trail wore into the ground I would guess about 8 inches or so. I always wondered about how it got there and a old man gave me a book that had a map in it of this foot trail. Come to find out it was used by the indians and early settlers to the area. I always found this interesting as part of the history of this area
 
Well if you think about it the U.S.A. is over 200 years old so few if any true Indian trail marker tree are still alive. I see tree like that on my place and all over and I sure as heck know they are freaks of nature due to lighting or wind or tornado's etc. I even have one on my place I made years ago by hitting it with a tractor and bending it over. It comes up maybe 2 foot then over about 3 foot then back straight up
 
You can't judge the age by that logic. The tree is stunted from haveing it's natural growth pattern altered.
 
At the trail tree truck stop in Rennselar, Indiana they had a history book aboot the trail trees in the area.
I haven't been in that neck of the voods in a while, but it vas interesting reading.
 
In northern Indiana there was (is but not marked) trail through the marsh land of the tip of Lake Michigan (refer to a book Dune Boy) which was marked with those in my life time (my grandfather showed me the trees and trail). It was a highway in comparison to some. It is on my sister's property. The stories it could tell! Jim
 
That could explain an ash on the boss' one property. It's the tallest tree in the woods there, and it bends like that, with a limb growing straight up out of the trunk. Could well be 30 inches at the base. I'll have to get pictures.
I was cutting wood there one evening last winter, knocked over a small hackberry, and as soon as the saw shut off I got this feeling that I was in a really bad spot and needed to leave NOW!. Barely slept the next two nights. It's a mile and a half down the same canyon that the house is in, I doubt that helped any.
Been cutting cedars off it and start to get that feeling again as soon as I step over the fence to get one that's not in the pasture. Goes away once I step back over the fence.
 
Depends on what kind of a tree it is and how dense the foliage has been around it. We cut down a basswood tree on our farm about 50 years ago that, according to the ring count, was a small tree when George Washington was the President of the United States.
 
Have seen some in eastern Ohio in State Parks & Historic Trails. They have some literature about them. Not terribly big trees but documented by early writing & photos as being there since the first palefaces.
 
Hear in SW Ohio there were and still are some(not many) old trail marker trees left. I found this photo that was most likely a marker for the old Bullskin Trace (also know as the Xenia Trace) from the late 1800s in the Edenton Ohio area. The trail is still there in places and know of ware it went. There were many Indian tribes here in SW Ohio as there was plenty of good hunting grounds. Bandit
a139379.jpg
 
Here's one in west central Ohio that I took a picture of. Don't know if it was significant but looks similar to the trail marker trees.
a139403.jpg
 
After reading all the below comments, which I found very interesting as I had never actually heard of trail marker trees, whether any of these existing trees were used by Native Americans or not, I feel sure that the tradition continued for quite some time. It may just be an oddity, or it may have been to mark a trail, but when I moved here thirty some years ago, about a quarter mile up the road there was a tree about twenty feet to the side that came up about three feet, bent to a right angle for about four feet and back upright. It was about eighteen inches diameter. When the state bought the property for a new highway, I intended to cut it and halve it for benches, but one of those things I never got around to.
 
So how did they make the marker trees, what direction do they point? I have some bent trees too, but doubt they were part of a trail. Mark
 
I grew up in Edenton Ohio, I am just learning about Bullskin trail and was wondering if you could send me the name of the book that you have. Thank you
 
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