6 NANTUCKET TREES 



thing to remove. . .and the stump has remained as a sample 

 of the big oak trees which once grew on this island, ac- 

 cording to tradition. But at last the tough old piece 

 of oak has been removed, Oliver Fisher tackling the job 

 ....In thi,s connection we have heard some of the men who 

 frequent Long Pond claim that below its waters are other 

 tree stumps .. .other junks of oak which bolster up the 

 claim that many years ago this island was heavily for- 

 ested in some sections." 25 The three pieces of this 

 Madaket stump were put together and are now preserved 

 at the Lydia S. Hinchrnan House. 



These various findings of buried tree stumps do 

 not necessarily imply great forests in the past. There 

 are living trees on the Island today whose bases are as 

 big as the buried stumps or bigger. The buried stumps 

 do, however, link us with the past. We do not attempt 

 here to date that past. Only a geologist, by comparison 

 of the overlying and underlying strata, is competent to 

 estimate the periods when these various buried stumps 

 were living trees. At least, for the oak of Madaquet 

 Ditch, we may say it lived over J>00 years ago. Accord- 

 ing to the late geologist, William F. Jones, reported 

 by his brother, Bassett Jones, "Many of these peat-bog 

 stumps belong to trees that grew on bottoms laid down 

 at least 1000 years ago and were later drowned out by 

 sea encroachments." 9 We should also guard against 

 thinking that these great stumps necessarily imply tall 

 trees in an ancient forest. We have already noted what 

 wind has done to the habit of beeches in the "Hidden 

 Forest." The ancient giants may well have been dwarfed 

 in stature. In emphasis of this point Bassett Jones 

 writes, "So I here register a doubt that any trees could 

 ever have attained to the dignity of 'architectural 

 timber' on this island." 27 



Man has worked with the wind to exterminate 

 trees. The Indians must have begun the destruction. 

 Some of the stumps found In peat bogs today bear crude 

 axe marks made possibly by early Indians with stone 

 axes. 29 Indians of the New England coast are described 

 in the record of Captain Waymouth's voyage along the 

 coast in 1605. Waymouth, unfortunately for our interests, 

 did not land on Nantucket . The east coast which he 



