The Erie Canal towpath was once the
interstate for itinerant workers — hoboes, if you will — who traveled from town
to town in search of their next farming or handyman gig. While doing so, they
frequently stopped over on my family’s farm, which butts up to the canal. It
was an attractive spot to set up camp because of the fresh water they could
drink from a brook that runs through our woods, the same brook from which they
ignited gas for cooking (there is a good reason it’s called “Gas”port).
While there, they often killed time by carving their names and other things in the bark of the beech trees that are common in our woods. The smooth gray bark, so easy to cut with a pocketknife, has always been quite inviting to amateur artisans, not to mention young lovers who wanted their names forever inscribed in Mother Nature for all the world to see. The hoboes, the lovers, and anyone else interested in making a statement left their calling cards on the beeches — old-fashioned graffiti that remains to this day.
While there, they often killed time by carving their names and other things in the bark of the beech trees that are common in our woods. The smooth gray bark, so easy to cut with a pocketknife, has always been quite inviting to amateur artisans, not to mention young lovers who wanted their names forever inscribed in Mother Nature for all the world to see. The hoboes, the lovers, and anyone else interested in making a statement left their calling cards on the beeches — old-fashioned graffiti that remains to this day.
Those trees tell stories.
On the trees that were cut when they
were mature and thus slower to grow, I can still make out dates from the early
1930s. Some of the handiwork, less legible as the tree grew, obviously came
from much earlier times. There are names; some of them belonged to the hoboes,
while others I recognize as locals who probably carved the tree when they were
in their teens and 20s. Now, they are in their senior years and their arboreal
artwork has aged less dramatically than they.
Two beeches show the efforts of my
family. One has neatly cut into its bark two words: “Ray Confer.” My
grandfather did that when he purchased the farm in 1955 at 33 years of age. He
has since passed, so that tree has always offered a comforting portal to a time
gone by. The other tree in question displays my dad’s boast of having hunted
his first squirrel. He likely carved that when he was just 12 years old. That
tree is like a trophy, one as impressive as the deer heads on his wall.
It won’t take long for the disease to take its toll on local forests, wiping out one of our most abundant trees and our best storytellers. Every year, more and more of them topple within our woodlots.
It’s disheartening to think that the
trees that should have outlived me won’t, taking with them the interesting
connection I have to my family and the dozens of hardworking men who made their
way across the region in hopes of overcoming the economic realities of their
time.
Not one to let memories — better yet, history — die so pitifully, over the past few years I’ve taken photographs of the various trees and their carvings that remain. If you have a stand of beeches, especially one along the towpath or the rail line, you should take the time to do so, too, to familiarize yourself with the people who once called your fair community “home,” be it for years or just a few nights.
By capturing the images on film we can maintain the carvings for the ages, just as their artists had intended.
From the 06 January 2020 Greater Niagara Newspapers and
Batavia Daily News
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