8 x 36 Thin Top Table going to the Christensen Family. Wood is American Chestnut that is on the extinction list. Wood came from an old pig barn that was located in White Hall, MD. Structure was built between 1900-1905. Leslie Wright built the structure during that time period to house his pigs. The Wright family came over from England in 1548 and settled in Massachusetts before heading west. They eventually settled in White Hall, Maryland. Mr. Wright passed away in 1956. Farm was sold to the Daily Crises Center and they used it as a pig barn as well. Wood consisted primarily of American Chestnut. There were once almost 4 million American Chestnut trees in the United States. They were among the largest, tallest and fastest growing trees in the eastern forest. The wood was long-lasting, straight grained and suitable for furniture, fencing and building. The nuts fed billions of birds and animals. It was almost a perfect tree-that is, until it was killed by a blight a century ago. That blight has been called the greatest ecological disaster to strike the worlds forests in all of history. A tree that had survived all adversaries for 40 million years had disappeared in 10 years. What was once known as the queen of Eastern America, the American Chestnut is now nearly extinct. The American chestnut was an economic staple of the original homesteaders in the Appalachian mountains. The wood was light weight , weather resistant, very easy to chop and mill by hand. Colonists used the trees not only for their homes but for fencing, rails and the nuts that they produced. They were known to grow up to 26 in diameter and if your farm had many American Chestnut trees you were considered to be a very wealthy farmer. It is believed that in 1904 a forester from the Bronx Zoo brought in Asian Chestnut trees to decorate the Zoo. It was in these trees that a blight called Endothia Parasitica was born. The fungus, which was unintentionally brought to America, spread fast. In less than 10 years the American Chestnut was all but extinct. The root bases below the disease are still alive but the saplings that they produce do not live long. Researchers have spent the last 100 years trying to revive the species but to no avail. Our American Chestnuts are now gone.
Posted on: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 20:07:23 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015