Winter is a wonderful time to explore Glen Providence Park! With the leaves down, we have a clearer view of this steep valley’s topography, and the trees can show off their elegant form, at times with a lovely blanket of snow. We will walk the park’s trails and get an introduction on how to identify trees through their structure, bark, buds, branch patterns, scent, and other details!

Winter Tree Identification Walk

Sunday, January 26, 10:00am-12:00 noon
Main entrance on State Street
Snow or shine*

 
John Wenderoth and Ted Cavey will introduce us to the basics of winter tree identification. We will start on the sledding hill, where there are trees that long pre-date the park, and trees that were planted in its early years- Glen Providence Park was dedicated as a Bird Sanctuary and Arboretum, after all! We will continue along the park’s trails, looking for examples of different tree species to identify.

John and Ted lead tree walks at Tyler Arboretum, where they volunteer at Tyler’s American Chestnut Orchard– which is how we met them!  John also helped us confirm the two American Chestnut trees we found still surviving in Glen Providence Park.

Logistics:
– Free!
– Estimated time: 2 hours
– Be prepared for steep hills, and uneven (possibly wet or icy) terrain: wear your hiking shoes, and bring a hiking pole if you use one.
– To add this event to your favorite calendar program (iCal, Outlook, Google, etc.), view the event listing on our calendar.

* In the event of truly inclement weather, we will post a cancellation on our website and facebook the morning of the Tree Walk.

Glen Providence Park has been studied by naturalists for many years, dating from T. Chalkley Palmer’s 1889 essay about Scroggie Valley.  According to a 1928 Chester Times article, “Naturalists, from all over the country, attending the Delaware County Institute of Science, make a study of it.”

The day after Glen Providence Park opened as a Bird Sanctuary and Arboretum on October 31, 1935, the Chester Times invited the reader to “Come with your bird glasses, your flower guides, your tree books.  Bring the school children and scout groups, and let Nature teach them her ancient lessons.”  Naturalists from the Philadelphia area visited the park to identify its trees, birds, wildlife, ferns, shrubs, and flowers. Join us as we continue the tradition…

Naturalist Walk & Talk

Saturday, February 23, 10:00-12:00 noon
Main entrance on State Street
Snow or shine!

Chris McNichol, who recently completed the exciting new Pennsylvania Master Naturalist program, will show us the park through his eyes. Animal tracks, early-blooming plants, wildlife… who knows what we will find!  Chris is a wealth of information on many topics- he teaches boat building, survival skills, rocketry, woodworking, fire starting, foraging, and mechanics at Open Connections, a local homeschool resource center!  A man of many hats, Chris co-founded the local CSA Red Hill Farm,  and if you remember the whimsical Pink Elephant tree house from Tyler Arboretum’s first Totally Terrific Treehouse exhibit in 2008, Chris built that! He also makes creations out of sustainably harvested and salvaged wood for Timber & Co.

Logistics:

Free!
As always, kids are welcome!
Estimated time: 2 hours
Be prepared for steep hills, and uneven (possibly wet) terrain: wear your hiking shoes, and bring a hiking pole if you use one… and of course binoculars!

To add this event to your favorite calendar program (iCal, Outlook, Google, etc.), view the event listing on our calendar.

We had a great introduction to winter tree identification in Glen Providence Park on a cold, beautiful, sunny Saturday morning in January! Two hours were just enough for John Wenderoth to use his forestry background to get us started- as he pointed out, the “10,000 Hour” mastery theory would indicate that we have 9,998 hours to go to master tree identification! But he gave us some helpful pointers, including that 80% of the trees in our area are Ashes, Oaks and Maples. Seventeen of us put John to the test, as he graciously fielded quite a number of questions!

John explained the use of identification “keys”– books that guide you through a fixed sequence of  identification steps, which with practice and patience will lead to accurately identifying a tree. One compact and handy book is the Winter Tree Finder (and its counterpart Tree Finder for summer)- which you can find online, or at the nearby Tyler Arboretum book store.

We toured the trees on the Sledding Hill, starting by checking out the line of intriguing Osage Orange trees along the southwest border. Their odd-looking fruit repels insects, and the trees were once planted as a “living fence” for livestock, due to sharp spines and a thicket-forming habit. Those in the park appear to be quite old, and the Sledding Hill is shown as pasture on an 1875 map, so perhaps they were once planted as a fence!

Of course we admired the magestic White Oak, which we believe to be well over 100 years old. We discussed bark, tree forms and branch patterns while we made our way around the Sledding Hill, examining its trees including Hemlock, Sassafras, White Ash, Walnut, Horse Chestnut, Black Cherry, and Apple. While we didn’t visit them, we couldn’t resist talking about the two American Chestnuts we found in the park, and we did visit the park’s uncommon Japanese Chestnut. We ventured just a bit into the Mountain Laurel Trail– which has some truly grand trees!

It was a fun and informative morning- thank you to John Wenderoth for sharing his knowledge and enthusiasm about trees, and to everyone who joined us!

Winter is a wonderful time to appreciate the landscape and trees of Glen Providence Park. With the leaves down, we have a clearer view of this steep valley’s topography, and the trees can show off their elegant form.  Winter is also a great time to learn to identify trees through their structure, bark, buds, branch patterns and other details– and we have just the person to teach us!

Winter Tree Identification

Saturday, January 19, 10:00-12:00 noon
Main entrance on State Street
Rain/snow date: Sunday, January 20, 2-4:00pm

John Wenderoth will teach us the basics of tree identification: from assessing the tree form at a distance, to examining winter twig characteristics up close.  We will start on the sledding hill, where the variety of common and unusual trees is more than sufficient to stimulate our curiosity. There are trees that long pre-date the park, and trees that were planted in its early years- Glen Providence Park was dedicated as a Bird Sanctuary and Arboretum, after all! Depending on how long we take on the sledding hill, we may continue on from there.

John has led tree walks at Tyler Arboretum, where he currently coordinates care of Tyler’s American Chestnut Orchard– which is how we met him!  John studied forestry at Penn State and Duke Universities.  We are fortunate that he’s been able to assist with our Tree Mapping of Glen Providence Park, and he helped us confirm the two American Chestnut trees we found still surviving in the park!

Logistics:

Free!
Estimated time: 2 hours
Be prepared for steep hills, and uneven (possibly wet) terrain: wear your hiking shoes, and bring a hiking pole if you use one… and of course binoculars!

To add this event to your favorite calendar program (iCal, Outlook, Google, etc.), view the event listing on our calendar.

The photo is of the White Oak on the Sledding Hill, taken in January 1950- this majestic tree is still there!  Posted with permission of the Media Historic Archives.

This fall, we were delighted to confirm that we found two healthy young American Chestnut trees in Glen Providence Park!  At the beginning of the 20th century, the American Chestnut, Castanea dentata, was a majestic tree dominating our eastern forests. Known as the Sequoia of the east, it was one of our tallest trees.  It was the preeminent tree from Maine to Mississippi, and constituted well over 25% of trees in Pennsylvania!

Its nuts and wood were highly valued by European colonists, and doubtless by the Okehocking who lived here before them.  According to the American Chestnut Foundation (ACF), it was the single most important food source for a wide variety of wildlife from bears to birds.

Then the Chestnut blight, Cryphonectria parasitica, was discovered in 1904 on imported Asian Chestnut trees in New York City, and it spread across the east- killing an estimated 4 billion trees by 1950.  Healthy trees were cut down in a failed attempt to stop the spread of the blight.  Saplings still grow from the root sprouts, but they usually die off again when the saplings are large enough to become infected themselves.  But there are some larger survivors…

The yellow mushrooms that led us to the American Chestnuts

Finding Glen Providence Park’s Chestnuts- by accident!

While volunteering at Tyler Arboretum’s American Chestnut Nursery, which is led by John Wenderoth, I learned to differentiate American, Chinese and Japanese Chestnut leaves.  With John, we sent leaf samples to the ACF for identification and confirmed blighted American Chestnut saplings in Long Point Wildlife Sanctuary in Rose Valley, and a Japanese Chestnut on the Sledding Hill in Glen Providence Park!*

Then in Glen Providence Park last October, I was photographing some bright yellow mushrooms I had noticed on the eastern hill, when I looked up and marveled to see what looked like American Chestnut leaves!  There are two chestnut trees measuring about 15′ and 25′ tall.  This fall, Sara Fitzsimmons of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the ACF confirmed by microscope analysis that the leaves are American!  We also found chestnut burrs (the spiky nut casings) on the western hill, but have not yet located their tree…
 

1855 Map of Media by Thomas Hughes showing “Chestnut Wood” by the current Broomall’s Lake – from Media Historic Archives

History of Chestnuts in Scroggie Valley

It turns out it is not so surprising to find these chestnuts, as we uncovered historical documentation of American Chestnuts in Scroggie Valley, most of which would become Glen Providence Park.

T. Chalkley Palmer’s detailed 1889 description of Scroggie Valley mentions chestnuts: “The northwest wall is… nearly devoid of trees.  The southeast wall is wooded continuously with oaks and chestnuts.” And he described the singing of the Hermit Thrush “…of a morning, from the top of the chestnut tree on the hill.”

Even earlier, an 1855 map of Media labels as “Chestnut Wood” the area to the east of Broomall’s Run, near what is now Broomall’s Lake.  Some of those may have been submerged when dam was built in 1883, and according to a 1905 article about the Media Grackle Roost near Broomall’s Lake, the rest were logged: “On the eastern side of the lake and stream the old “Camp Meeting Woods,” principally chestnut, was wrought up for commercial purposes”. 

By 1912 the blight had hit our area: according to a Chester Times report of a Chestnut Blight talk at the Delaware County Institute of Science, the blight was “generally spread” in Eastern Pennsylvania, but had not yet spread to the Western part of the state.

In 1915, the Chester Times lamented the near-decimation of the chestnuts and their beautiful woods: “Many of the hills in and near Media, which have in past years been noted for their beauty because of the forests which crowned them, will, before the end of the present summer, stand bare except for the disfiguring stumps, mute reminders of the old conditions.”

Japanese Chestnut branch with burrs in Glen Providence Park- the (very prickly!) burrs contain nuts

Amazingly, as recent as 1935 there is documentation of chestnuts in the park- the Chester Times described chestnut saplings on George Butler’s estate, which would soon be donated for Glen Providence Park: “A close observer of nature finds many young chestnut trees coming up on the estate of Edward B. Creighton and Mr. Butler.”   The article recalls, “In days gone by… those having nut trees on their estates and farms would have house parties and their guests would carry back to their homes baskets filled with nuts…”

While over time most of those saplings would have succumbed to the blight, we now know that at least two have survived!  We provided these historical records to the ACF, and we will continue to monitor these two American Chestnuts for them- and look for more!  We also hope to plant more American Chestnuts in Glen Providence Park, with the help of the ACF’s research…
 

American Chestnuts in North Carolina in 1910 – courtesy of the Forest History Society, Durham, NC

Restoration efforts:

There have been a variety of efforts to save the American Chestnut since the blight was discovered, from fungicides to irradiation.  As a result of decades of “backcrossing” Chinese and American Chestnuts by the ACF, there is now a hybrid “restoration chestnut”  with 94% American genes, but with just enough Chinese traits to provide blight resistance.  Tyler Arboretum’s American Chestnut Nursery grows trees to provide nuts to help preserve a genetic stock of pure American Chestnuts.

On a personal note, I learned that my grandfather worked on restoring the American Chestnut for decades in his retirement, which I didn’t know until after I became interested in American Chestnut restoration and started volunteering!  His work is cited in Susan Freinkel’s 2007 book “American Chestnut- The Life, Death, and Rebirth of a Perfect Tree.”

Keep your eyes out in the park (and in your family records!), you really never know what you will find!

* I had actually been tipped off about there being a chestnut tree on the Sledding Hill when HACC Biology Professor Geremea Fioravanti of the Delaware County Institute of Science posted a photo of a chestnut burr on our facebook page!

For more information:

– Visit the American Chestnut Foundation and PA Chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation websites

– Read  “The chestnut resurrection,” Nature, October 4, 2012

– Volunteer at Tyler Arboretum’s American Chestnut Nursery!

Surviving American Chestnuts & restoration efforts in Pennsylvania include:
– Natural Lands Trust’s Mariton Preserve in Easton, PA
– Jenkins Arboretum in Devon

Additional Sources:

– “Scroggie,” T. Chalkley Palmer, The Student, Germantown, PA, December 1889 & January 1890

– “The Media Grackle Roost,” Samuel Omensetter, Cassinia, Proceedings of the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club, No. IX, Philadelphia, PA, 1905

– “American Chestnut – The Life, Death and Rebirth of a Perfect Tree,” Susan Freinkel, University of California Press, 2007

Chester Times articles:
– No Known Cure for Chestnut Blight – August 13, 1912
– Passing of the Woods – May 1, 1915
– Relics of Chestnut Blight – Gaunt Skeletons Rear Themselves in Every Wood Tract – August 10, 1916
– Unique Arboretum on County Estate – June 14, 1935

You can click on any photo for a closer look, and scroll through the photos below.

William Penn sailed up the Delaware River for the first time on the Welcome on October 28, 1682: 62 years after the Mayflower reached Plymouth.  Penn landed in Upland (now Chester), and would travel the countryside and visit the Native Americans in their lodges, “purchasing” from them the land he had been granted by England’s King Charles II in 1681.  Penn was not the first European in Delaware County- the Native Americans had been fur trading with the Dutch and Swedes since 1643.

Penn had peaceful intentions and signed a Treaty of Friendship with Lenni Lenape Chief Tamanend.  But the settlers did not waste time staking out their new territory, as reflected in the property lines on the Map of the Province of Pennsylvania – begun in 1681.  Of course this would ultimately drive out the Native Americans who had been living here for millennia.

But what was it like here before the settlers?  While we don’t have specific information about Native Americans in Glen Providence Park, we do have an account of their history along Ridley and Crum Creeks from Jane Levis Carter’s book The Down River People of the Lenni Lenape Indians.  The park lies between Ridley and Crum Creeks, and its brook Broomall’s Run is a tributary to Ridley Creek.

Paleo Indians

Around 12,000 to 18,000 years ago, nomadic hunters known as Paleo Indians came to Pennsylvania.  With club and spear they hunted mammoth, moose, caribou and smaller game like Siberian lemming and snowshoe rabbits. They seem to have vanished around 9,000 years ago, at the end of the last glacial period.

Archaic Indians

Around 9,000 years ago the Archaic Indians arrived, hunting deer and other game.  They were skilled at spear fishing, and their diet included clams, berries and nuts, with acorns ground into flour and cooked as gruel.  There was a transitional period 5,000 years ago when they moved to more fixed abodes, developing clay pottery, and expanding their fishing methods with fish hooks, brush nets and stone weirs.

Witch hazel branches are said to have been used by Native Americans as dowsing rods

Lenni Lenape

Woodland Indians were direct descendants of the Archaic Indians, dating from around 3,000 years ago.  Europeans called them Delaware, after Sir Thomas West, Lord de la Warr.  But these people called themselves the Lenni Lenape, the Real or Original People.  Other tribes called them the Grandfather People, out of respect.  Their range was New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware.

The Lenni Lenape were part of a social and language family known as Algonkian- an ancient race of nomad hunters, skilled in pursuit of deer, elk and caribou.  They cleared trees for agriculture, with early crops including tobacco, sunflowers for oil and dye, and corn.

“remedy for pain was the root of the common wood violet”

Okehocking

The Unami, or Down River People, were one of three Lenni Lenape tribes.  The clan of Unami who lived along the Ridley and Crum Creek watersheds became known as the Okehocking, whose heraldic emblem was the turtle, or Pakoango.  They had pumpkin plantations: the name Okehocking seems to be derived from mokahoki, or “people of the pumpkin place.”

About 1,200 years ago they began to use the bow & arrow.  Their crops of corn, beans and squash were termed the Three Sisters, and were staples in the diets of Native Americans and later settlers.  And the Okehocking would know how to utilize the park’s native plants, as depicted along the right.

The Okehocking knew the Mayapple’s root to be poisonous

The Okehocking would have used the Minquas Path, which crossed Ridley Creek two miles south of Glen Providence Park, near the Old Mill in Rose Valley.  This was a trading route used by the Susquehannock Indians, who were called Minquas by the Lenni Lenape.

While the Okehocking were primarily peaceful, they had notorious altercations with Nathaniel Newlin over the damming of creek waters.  In 1702, a group of settlers including Newlin removed the Okehockings from the banks of the Ridley and Crum Creeks to a new reservation in Willistown.  The Ockehocking remained for about a generation, and abandoned the reservation in 1737.  Part of that land is the Okehocking Preserve today.   This may have been the first Indian reservation in the country.

“Sassafras root, winauk, was a common spring tonic”

With the Okehocking Reservation five miles up Ridley Creek, the Minquas Trail two miles down Ridley Creek from Glen Providence Park, and the Lenape documented at the nearby Tyler Arboretum, we can imagine the Okehocking could have known Broomall’s Run where the park is situated.  We just wish we knew what they called it!

Where did they go?

Conventional histories of Pennsylvania indicate that the Lenape people left the state by the beginning of the 19th century.  Many Lenape were driven westward, and ultimately created communities in Oklahoma, Kansas, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, and beyond.

While all parts of Pokeberry are toxic, Okehocking knew how to safely prepare “pigeonberry” or “poke” shoot

But according to the Lenape Nation website: “…some Lenape people remained here in secret. Children of the little known Lenape-European marriages of the 1700s stayed on the Lenape homelands and continued to practice their traditions covertly. Hiding their heritage, they avoided discovery by both the government and their neighbors for more than two hundred years. Now, the descendants of these people have come forward to tell their story.”

Unless otherwise noted or linked, information is from the 1976 book The Down River People of the Lenni Lenape Indians by Jane Levis Carter, Mark One Printing, Philadelphia.

Benjamin West's painting (in 1771) of William Penn's 1682 treaty with the Lenape