Sunday, February 24, 2013
Trail Trees Along Jumbo
On Saturday, The EIC Crew investigated trees we have noticed along Jumbo Road but never paid much attention to until recently. Within the last few months, the area where these trees stand has been cleaned up and brush was removed exposing what Rick and I have both noticed before but dismissed as dead-fall. To our amazement and delight, we found the trees to be two of the most unusual specimens we have yet encountered. We could only speculate as to their origin.
The trees are located adjacent to a flowing spring that runs through a beautiful little hollow complete with waterfall.
The tree shown at the bottom is one we happened to find along Jumbo after leaving the site of the two unusual trees.
Both of these trees are further evidence that Jumbo Road might have been built along an ancient Indian trace and this route was likely the one taken in 1838 by part of the Benge Detachment during the Trail of Tears Indian removal.
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3 comments:
I'm curious.
Why would these trees determine the trail? We have trees shaped like this.
Gail,
These trees make about 14 we have found along the Jumbo Road which we believe was the route taken by the Trail of Tears group. We know that Indians had marked footpaths throughout the United States and were marked. We know that a portion of the Benge Detachment traveled from the area near modern Sage to Athens and this would have been a known route. Our theory is that the early roads used by the pioneers were first built along the corridor of the ancient Indian trails and that it would have only been logical that a group of Cherokee led by a Cherokee member of the U.S. Army would have known about these markers and would have followed those trails. We also think it is highly possible the group marked their journey by fashioning more trees along the way. Our hypothesis predicts that we will continue to find marker/thong/Indian Trail trees along the suspected route. That prediction continues to reward us with new tress along the route.
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