Private Property to Public Property: the Beginnings of the National Forests in the South

PRIVATE PROPERTY TO PUBLIC PROPERTY: THE BEGINNINGS OF THE NATIONAL FORESTS IN THE SOUTH Gerald W. Williams, Ph.D. National Historian USDA Forest Service Washington, D.C. March 29, 2003 The federal government has been actively involved with forests in the South since 1799 with the establishment of several live oak reservations for naval purposes. However, large land allocations for national forests would have to wait for 120 years. The national forest system began on March 3, 1891, with passage of a bill–referred to as the Creative Act by the Forest Service–that was designed to eliminate problems with previous homestead laws (26 Stat. 1095). Attached to the bill was a one sentence amendment that allowed the president to proclaim forest reserves (later called national forests) from the timber covered public domain. The only problem was that the public domain (unclaimed public land) was almost all in the West. Within days of the passage of the act, President Harrison had proclaimed forest reserves on some 15 million acres of land. By the end of President Cleveland’s second term, a total of 40 million acres of forest reserves had been proclaimed, some very controversial. President McKinley was faced with a huge problem of trying to overcome opposition to the new reserves and still fund the daily operations of the government, since abolishment of the reserves was tied to the annual sundry appropriations bill. Finally, the Congress passed and the president signed a bill know known as the Organic Act of 1897. However, as the forest reserves in the West grew in leaps and bounds, there was no federal protection for timber areas in the East. In addition, the timber covered mountains in the North east and South were quickly being converted to stumps. There were huge problems with land erosion and timber companies leaving the now cut-over land behind–taxes were often not paid and the lands became the property of the counties and states. In 1911, an act was passed that was intended to resolve at least part of the situation. Called the Weeks Act, it allowed the federal government to purchase lands that once had trees/forests. Within a few years, many acres of land were purchased from willing owners and willing counties and states. These lands, after many purchases of often very small pieces of land, were converted to national forests by Congress–the first was the Pisgah National Forest in 1916 in the state of North Carolina. Today, there are approximately 25 million acres of national forests in the East–12 million acres of these in the South). The unique challenges and obstacles that had to be overcome to establish these national forests in the South, as well as the management problems (including that of the “light burning” controversy) after the national forests were established, are the issues to be described below. In addition, each southern state is discussed briefly in relation to the establishment of national forests within the boundaries. This paper was prepared for the American Society for Environmental History meeting held in Providence, RI, on March 26-30, 2003. 1 LIVE OAK RESERVATIONS The Federal Timber Purchasers Act of February 25, 1799 (1 Stat. 622) appropriated $200,000 to buy timber and timberland for naval purposes. Live oak trees were highly valued for lumber used in the planking and large wood pieces used by the wooden fleets of the time. BlacKbeard’s and Grover’s Islands off the Georgia were purchased–these were the first federal purchases of timbered land for government use. The Act of March 1, 1817 (3 Stat. 347), renewed the 1799 act, directed the president to reserve live oaK or cedar timbered public lands that may have use for the U.S. Navy. Under this act, 19,000 acres were reserved on Commissioners, Cypress, and Six Islands in Louisiana. The live oaK lands were administered by the Navy Department. The Federal Timber Reservation Act of March 3, 1827 (4 Stat. 242) established the Santa Rosa live oaK timber reserve near Pensacola, Florida, for the exclusive use by the Navy. This was the first federal timberland reservation that is used for forestry purposes. About 30,000 acres of the Santa Rosa peninsula (that extends into the Bay of Pensacola) was intended to be the first forest experiment station with planting live oaKs, clearing brush, creating fire breaKs, and Keeping trespassers out, but the idea becomes a political issue and is dropped. The Naval Appropriations Act of 1828 approved spending not more than $100,000 to purchase land necessary for the continuous supply of live oak and other timber, especially cedar, for the Navy. This appropriation was spent on the Santa Rosa naval timber reserve and experiment station near Pensacola, Florida. Henry M. BracKenridge, supervisor of the reserve, wrote a letter to Secretary Southard of the Navy Department where he discussed innovative the culturing of live oaK. This was one of the first American papers on silviculture. The Timber Trespass Act of March 2, 1831 (4 Stat. 472), relating to the live oaK and other timber reservations, became the basis for present-day law for the prevention of timber trespass on federal land. Fines for timber trespass were to be not less than three times the value of the timber cut. By the 1830s, trespass cutting on the reserves was flagrant. Congress requested in early 1832 that the Secretary of the Navy report on the reserves, which he did on December 18, 1832. In conclusion, the report as recorded by Kephart (1983: 471), stated that there should be no “further purchases on private lands on which this [live oak] tree grows, or to carry the artificial cultivation of it, on any of the public lands, beyond what had already ben attempted.” For a 30-year period from 1830 to 1860, 14 presidential orders set aside approximately 200,000 acres of live oaK reserves from public lands (Kephart 1983). Congress passed an act in 1871 that authorizing the expenditure of $5,000 for the “protection of timberlands.” This was intended to be used for protection of the naval timber (live oak) reservations. This was the first appropriation for the protection of publically owned timber. The next year, the amount was doubled and applied to all public lands. Reservations of live oaK lands in Louisiana were opened for settlement in 1843. The disposal of live oak reservations continued until 1923 when the last of the reservations was sold. THE SOUTH AND TIMBER Settlement in many parts of the South began in the middle-1700s, displacing the native American Indians. By the middle 1800s, millions of acres of land in the southern state were extensively cleared for farms and plantations. As the better lowlands were taken and used for cotton and tobacco production, many new settlers moved to the often inaccessible mountain areas where farms were often scratched from the forests. A typical mountain-type or “hardscrabble” farm was described as having: both bottomland and steep hillsides. About a quarter was in crops, a fifth in cleared pasture, and the remainder, over half, was in forest. Springs and a nearby creek provided plentiful water. About half the land under cultivation was devoted to corn, which provided a household staple and basis for whiskey [one of the few cash “crops”], as well as grain for horses and hogs. Secondary crops were oats, wheat, hay, sorghum, rye, potatoes, and buckwheat. An orchard of apple and other fruit trees was planted. Many farmers had their own bee hives, and every farm had a large vegetable garden–where green beans, pumpkins, melons, and squash were commonly grown. Contour farming was still unKnown 2 here. Crops and gardens often stretched vertically up the side of a hill, hastening erosion, runoff, and siltation of mountain streams... Usually 8 to 12 people–parents, children, and occasionally grandparents or other relatives–live on the farm...Homes were usually built in sheltered spots with good water readily accessible and within easy walKing distance–but not sight–of neighbors. The traditional mountain homestead was a handhewn cabin, usually one room with a loft, front porch, and possibly a lean-to at the bacK...Eventually two- to four-room box houses and larger frame houses became more common (Mastran and Lowerre 1983: xx). Gifford Pinchot, who started his forestry experience in 1892 on the forest lands of the George Vanderbilt (Biltmore) estate near Asheville, North Carolina, described the people that he came in contact with during management of the forest lands and purchase of additional lands in the state: people knew nothing of game preserves and but little of property rights. On the contrary, they regarded this country as their country, their common. And that was not surprising, for they needed everything usable in it–pasture, fish, and game–to supplement the very meager living they were able to scratch from the soil of their little clearings, which often were no clearings at all, but mere “deadenings,” filled with the whitening sKeletons of trees killed by girdling... The lives of these mountain people were literally as cribbed, cabined, and confined as the country in which they had their being was spacious, rich, and beautiful. They dwelt and slept mostly in one-room cabins, and they lived very far from high. An open fireplace was cookstove and furnace, with a kettle hanging from a crane [a wrought iron, swinging arm device that held pots over the fire for cooking]. Glass was rare, and windows were closed by solid board shutters. Homespun [cloth] was the common wear. There was, of course, nothing approaching sanitation, shoes were little worn around home, and hookworm was everywhere.

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