I've always been an outdoors person and growing up I enjoyed hanging out in the woods behind my house in Painesville Township, and the woods behind my grandmothers house in Willoughby. My family would occasionally take me for hikes throughout the area's local parks, which I enjoyed thoroughly even though I never really had an understanding of what types of tree's and forest I was surrounded by. In recent years I've been revisiting the outdoors that I enjoyed in my youth, by taking long hikes throughout the local Lake Metroparks and Cleveland Metroparks. I really started picking up interest in the ecology of these "natural" area's about 3 years ago. To me, the best definition of natural meant un-impacted by man, something that has remained a relative constant regardless of our presence. I was really disappointed to find out that Ohio essentially has no "virgin" forests, something that would have fit that bill perfectly.
Two years ago I then discovered that there is such thing as not so impacted old growth, and that there are still a few tiny places throughout the state that has managed to survive clear-cutting and heavy development, with little activity of past logging or other impact. I wanted to know if there was anything near by where I lived, because the more I learned, the more I really felt like I was missing something when all I was encountering was immature developing forest. That's when I read about a past naturalist named A. B. Williams, a man very involved in the foundation of the Cleveland Metroparks. This early 20th century naturalist literally wrote the book on southern Great Lakes Beech-Maple forests, and he did so because of one 1,050 acre stretch of land 2 miles north to south, and .75 miles wide - spread out over a collection of deep ravines and plateus on the west side of the Chagrin River. At the time the Metroparks started, the Squire family (famous for Squire's Castle) donated 525 acre's of this land to what would soon be known as North Chagrin Reservation. Then, at the insistance of A. B. Williams, the rest of this pre-colonial forest was aquired from the various near by property owners via eminant domain. According to his extensive study throughout the rest of his lifetime, he recorded that there were many examples of tree's in the park over 500 years of age. He focused his studies on a 65 acre section of what he felt was the "least" disturbed of the old growth. He documented ages, distrubution, species, and as I said, is responsible for writing the book on Northeast Ohio's original native forest.
Noteworthy information that he documented was the impact on the forest after settlement. The area was once selectively logged in the late 1870's for Red Oak, and at the time he is studying, he comments that most of the red oak are likely underrepresented from what he imagines was once there. The area he chose to study did however contain a few pre-colonial Oaks (and still does today). Another, smaller impact to consider is that some fallen tree's, and some selected white-ash were used to construct the first Nature Center in the late 1920's. In addition, he noted in the 1930's there was a noticeable decline in the old-growth Hemlock. Despite this, there are still quite a few around today, scattered throughout the ravines.
Finally, what we must also consider since his studies, is the impact of the Chestnut blight, and Dutch Elm disease, as well as North Chagrin Reservation's problematic drainage issues. In the past, the roads and trails that are scattered throughout the park have noticeably changed the composition of some of the the old growth, as there are now large area's within the 1,050 acres that contain a larger percent of light loving tree's alongside drowned out Beech, or Sugar Maple. This issue has been noticed by the Park in recent years and they are working to fix the problem to prevent further impact. On the bright side, the park is now loaded with mature, and very tall Red Oak. I imagine it is quite a bit closer to it's pre-colonial appearance in quite a few area's, because when Williams studied the park, all but a few of the Red Oak were no more than 50 years of age, and today that would make most of those second growth tree's roughly 130 years of age. They still look maybe half the girth relative to the few dozen pre-colonial Oak's that remain, but they compliment the Giant's nicely.
Now to the goodies that I've found throughout the park. A. B. Williams section of woods (in the middle of the park) is by far the most impressive place to see mature Red Oak. One tree has an <18' girth, and another is 17'11". There are at least half a dozen other giant Oaks concentrated in that spot, mixed in with a healthy population of 130 year old second growth oaks. All of the tree's throughout the southern half the 1,050 acre's appear to be unaffected by drainage issues, as there are hardly any trails through this area. There are 3 very large (and hard to access) plateaus stretching about a half mile long that contain absolutely no trails, and are buffered in on all sides by a large tract of second growth, steep ravines, and a massive beaver swamp. I had been exploring that area regularly until I counted about 2 dozen piles of black bear scat scattered throughout the area, and yes, many of them were fresh. The beech tree's in there were the largest I have ever seen, and the canopy height was far far above average for Beech. In the North end of the park there is still some nice patches of old growth, but they are smaller and less continuous than the southern end. In the Northern area, worthy of note is a 300 year old stand of White Pine, completely surrounded by the Beech-Maple forest. According to an information block alongside the trail the stand averages 148' tall, and more than half of them started growing in the 1790's. This seem's to be consistant with what I've measured because so far 2 tree's I measured were roughly 125' tall, but one of them came in to be 170' tall. However, I do not have a laser, so I can not get precise measurements.
I am starting to document this place to the best of my ability, in the hopes that it will attract some attention from people with better equipment and knowledge of forestry. I feel that this place has been oddly elusive and off the radar of present-day tree hunters, and eastern forest ecologists. 1,050 acres of well-documented old growth, is a heck of a lot more acreage than the 15-50 acres that are more typically studied from Ohio's surviving old-growth.
http://rev215.treesdb.org/Browse/Sites/551/Details
Here is the link to my tree database, please feel free to look at the pictures and you'll get an idea of how special this place is. I will be collecting data the rest of this summer. I hope to get 30 complete measurements of at least 13 species that I recognize as incredibly large relative to all else I've seen at any eastern U.S. locations I've been to. Places like Mohican Wilderness, Cuyahoga Valley, Chapin Forest, and even many places in PA are fresh in my memory and do not contain tree's as massive, and diverse as this place.
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Click on image to see its original size
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