January 10, 2004
Bald cypress trees, Taxodium distichum, get their common name because they're one of the few members of the redwood family that's deciduous, dropping their leaves in winter. They will grow here, willingly and well. There are three big ones near the UVa chapel, a fast-growing double line of them in front of the Emmet Street parking garage, and a huge one between the Rotunda and University Avenue.We have a small one planted at the Ivy Creek Natural Area in the little demonstration of Virginia native trees near the caretaker's house.
But it takes a long time to grow a really big cypress, six or seven hundred years, and they do best in swamps, the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia, other swamps in the southeast and especially in northwest Florida, much of which is now the Big Cypress National Preserve, although there aren't many big cypresses left there. The intense logging, mostly in the nineteen forties and fifties removed about 90 % of the largest giants. The lumber was durable, beautiful and extremely valuable, and used for just about everything. I know one house on the Florida/Georgia border built entirely of cypress logs without a single knot, it's a gorgeous place.
No question that the biggest trees are gone, but the history of their rise and fall and eventual partial preservation is an interesting one. The Big Cypress Swamp was an inhospitable place to live and work, inhabited mostly by Native Americans who had learned to cope with the conditions. During the heyday of the logging operations, there was also a large population of African-Americans who came to work, and some stayed. The actual felling was unbelievably hard. Initially trees were cut with a two-man crosscut saw, the men often working in water up to their chests. If a tree was too big for the saw, one handle was removed, and one man cut as far as he could from one side, then another took over from the other side. Railroad lines were built to remove the logs, another incredible operation, and with the advent of the power saw, the work and elimination of the biggest trees went much faster.
There's a dearth of information about the role played, and the lifestyle of the Black community in the logging operation, now partly remedied by an excellent report on the subject recently compiled by Frank and Audrey Peterman, based on a lot of research and archival excavation, and some fascinating interviews with local people who shared their memories. Coming from folk inevitably around their nineties, the stories were lucid and colorful, offering insight into both the way of life, and local natural history—the excitement and danger of a hundred and fifty foot tree coming down, limbs often flying off unpredictably, raccoons, possums, deer and even panthers hurrying away—snakes, there were lots but surprisingly they remembered no cases of snake bite. Hard-living, yes, but the tales were told with refreshingly little judgment or blame. It's a great addition to regional history and culture. Frank Peterman is currently the director of the Wilderness Society's southeast regional office, so we collaborate on another mutual interest, Wilderness in Virginia.
And there are some pretty big cypresses still standing just east of the Big Cypress, along part of the boardwalk in thev Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve (made famous by the “Orchid Thief” and its movie adaptation), as well as to the north, in the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, owned and operated by the Audubon Society who boast of the last stand of virgin cypress in eastern America. So admire the cypress where you are, and think what the little ones will be like in another 400 years or so.
Written and recorded by Bess Murray for radio station, WTJU © Bess Murray, All Rights Reserved
Photo of Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve by Miguel Vieira / CC BY 2.0
