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About Applegater. (Jacksonville, OR) 2008-current | View Entire Issue (May 1, 2016)
6 Spring 2016 Applegater BACK IN TIME Logtown Cemetery comes alive! BY EVELYN BYRNE WILLIAMS WITH JANEEN SATHRE Several years ago, after Carl Offenbacher made and donated a beautiful wrought iron gate to Logtown Cemetery, plans were proposed to remove the old falling-down fence and install new fencing to go with the gate. Even with some monetary donations and willing volunteers to do some of the work, the project seemed beyond the financial capabilities of the Logtown Cemetery Association. As time went on and more ideas were sifted through, a solution began to evolve that has brought the old cemetery to its new look: a black chain link fence that runs along the front and a no-climb field fence enclosing the three other sides. I would like to thank all the wonderful volunteers who worked on removing trees, brush, and old fencing. Though I have been asked not to list their names, as they seem to be shy about their good deeds, I feel blessed to live in a community with them in it. I would also like to thank the entities that helped the association secure the necessary capital to buy and install the fence: Oregon Parks and Recreation Division (with an Oregon Historic Cemetery Grant), Oregon Community Foundation (with a gift from Maggie Purves), McKee Bridge Historical Society, and the Logtown Cemetery Association (for keeping the project on the front burner). Some of the following history of the cemetery is from John and Marguerite Black, who were charter members of the cemetery association. For many years Marguerite was the secretary and John was the sexton. They are now buried in the cemetery that they loved so much and donated their valuable time to. On September 20, 1892, John M. McKee sold his 160-acre homestead at Logtown to Austin Albright for $600. This included a two-story log house, barns, sheds, farmland, and some mining ground. It also included the graveyard, which by this time contained several rows of graves of miners and early settlers, some of them McKees. However, McKee’s deed to Albright did not mention any land set The cedar archway was installed in 1939. aside or reserved for a cemetery. Legal ownership of this graveyard was passed along to each purchaser of the property until 1929. The old cemetery, then called Laurel Grove, was located about 400 feet up the hill on the east side of the Jacksonville- Crescent City road (now Highway 238). In 1929, a group of local people rebuilt the wire fence with new cedar posts donated by Mark Winningham. No written records of burials were kept in the early days, but Elva Smith, who grew up near Logtown and knew everyone, kept track of names and dates on hand-drawn maps as best she could during the 1920s and 1930s. Issac Coffman, long-time sexton of the Jacksonville Cemetery, often assisted with burials in Logtown during the 1930s. The Logtown Cemetery Association was formally organized at a meeting held at the cemetery on May 14, 1939. Those who attended were Elva and Ed Smith, Pearl and Harry Whitney, Bill and Gertrude Winningham, L. Frank and Anna Lozier, The wrought iron gate was made by Carl Offenbacher. Emma Smith, E. Igo and wife, Minus and Osie Pence, Leonard McKee, and John and Marguerite Black. They voted to change the name of the cemetery back to Logtown and agreed that all persons who had relatives buried there or owned a plot All those dead trees—again BY BILL SCHAUPP AND ELLEN MICHAELS GOHEEN A similarly titled article in the June 2003 Applegater began as follows: “Those of us who make our living surveying for and diagnosing the causes of tree mortality and then offering recommendations for managing forest insects and pathogens are used to focusing on dead and dying trees. Our perspectives, relative to those of others, are probably a bit peculiar. We see the few red and gray trees even when they are surrounded by a sea of green ones. We watch the weather closely, not anticipating our vacations, but instead wondering where and what the next outbreak will be. Wet years are ‘good for fungi.’ Fog banks on hillsides are ‘spore clouds.’ Trees in dense stands in dry years are ‘bark beetle bait.’ Mostly, we can predict the likely outcomes of shifts in weather patterns; that is, we know which insects or fungi will likely be involved in disease, dieback, and tree death in given situations. But even after decades of close observation, we can sometimes be surprised by how quickly things change and how large the scale of the impacts can be.” Now that there is a similar situation in the Applegate with all those dead trees—again, it seems appropriate to hear from us once more. How did we get here? The 2013 drought followed by the snow drought of 2014 diminished tree defenses in interior areas of southwest Oregon, especially in very dense stands. Subsequently, tree mortality due to insects and plant pathogens has increased. This is especially evident in the Klamath-Siskiyou ecoregion, which includes the Applegate. In t h e Ap p l e g a t e Ad a p t i v e Management Area (AMA), which encompasses the entire Applegate River watershed, the results of the 2015 aerial detection survey illustrate a large increase in conifer mortality—pines, firs and Douglas fir—as compared with previous years (see graph). Note that after the dry years of 2007 through 2009, another increase in mortality was detected. How do we determine this trend? Since 1951 the USDA Forest Service and the Oregon Department of Forestry have been doing an annual aerial survey to detect tree mortality in Oregon. Two observers fly in a small airplane in a grid pattern over all of the forested lands in Oregon. They map the locations of recently killed trees, estimate their number, and provide a “cause of death” based on tree species affected and the pattern of mortality observed. Obviously, they don’t map small dead trees in the understory, and they miss many trees when visibility isn’t perfect, so we consider the numbers we detect lower than what we would actually measure on the ground. We ground- check a sample of the dead trees we map to give us an idea of how valid our estimates are. We can be confident that the data derived from the aerial survey provides us with good information on mortality trends over time. These data, maps, reports and related information are posted on the Internet at www.fs.usda. gov/detail/r6/forest-grasslandhealth/ insects-diseases/?cid=stelprdb5286951. These surveys and a number of studies have shown that particular types of tree mortality occur in pulses, often in response to drought or other weather conditions. were considered members with a right to attend annual meetings and vote. In a subsequent meeting, the association filed applications for incorporation and made plans to obtain legal title to the south half of the cemetery. Property owners of portions of the cemetery were Walter W. and Edith Bell, residing in California, and Paul E. and Mildred Pearce, residing in the Applegate. Both parties graciously donated land to the association. The cemeter y has gone through a few facelifts over the years. In 1939 a rustic archway with a carved wooden sign, donated by the local Civilian Conservation Corps, was installed. In 1949 the cedar archway became unsafe and was replaced with railroad iron and a wire gate. A well was drilled in 1950 and a hand pump installed. In 1958 a group of members planted a row of slips from Maryum McKee’s yellow rose bush (Logtown Rose) along the front on the north side of the gate. Later on, the Applegate Garden Club set out more slips on the south side of the gate. There are only a few of us old-timers left with memories and stories of the people buried there. There are probably more McKees or relatives of the McKees buried there than other families, but there is no doubt that a who’s who of the Applegate is etched in stone throughout the cemetery. If you have an interesting story about someone buried in Logtown, send it to Janeen Sathre at djsathre@ gmail.com or 1517 Palmer Creek Road, Jacksonville, OR 97530. Evelyn Byrne Williams with Janeen Sathre • 541-899-1443 What factors other than drought are involved? The insects and pathogens associated with the tree mortality are all responding to trees under stress, mostly water stress. That explains why there is more mortality where water is less available—on rocky soils, on heavy clay soils, on drier, hotter aspects, at lower elevations, and in heavily-stocked stands. Other vegetation—grass, forbs, shrubs, or hardwood trees such as oaks and madrones—competes with pines, Douglas fir, white fir, and incense-cedar for moisture. When water is in short supply, trees are weakened and their chemistry changes. Chemical changes may result in direct attraction of insects to weakened trees or to increased ability by insects and fungi to overcome tree defense mechanisms. Although the winter has begun with ample precipitation, it is likely that 2016 will be another year of elevated conifer mortality in the AMA. This is due, in part, to the enlarged beetle populations that exist within currently infested conifers and the life-cycle length of the beetle species involved. Another year of below-average precipitation will exacerbate this situation. Bill Schaupp • 541-858-6125 Ellen Michaels Goheen bschaupp@fs.fed.us Bill is a forest entomologist and Ellen is a plant pathologist with the USDA Forest Service Forest Health Protection in Central Point, Oregon.
