Trail trees
One unique characteristic of the trail marker tree is a horizontal bend several feet off the ground, which makes it visible at greater distances, even in snow.
Each manipulated sapling was intended to survive, to grow large and to retain its shape becoming part of an extensive land and water navigational system designed to help them find their way in wild landscapes throughout forested areas of North America.
Trail marker trees provided a form of land and water navigation originating from Native American tribes throughout North America.
Trail marker trees designated areas of significant importance to Native Americans including council circles and gathering points.
[14] The first report of trail marker trees, in what is now the State of Illinois, appeared in a document called Map of Ouilmette Reservation with its Indian Reminders dated 1828–1844.
At the beginning of the 1900s, articles, books, special events, and installation of bronze plaques at known Indian trail tree sites began to appear.
The first recorded plaque was dedicated by the Chicago Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution on May 6, 1911 at the northernmost edge of Cook County, Illinois.
Recorded in the original Federal survey of 1838, on the narrow path from Chicago to Milwaukee, two identifiable trail marker trees once stood clearly marking the route north.
[18] In the Illinois Country, later part of the Northwest Territory, this custom of shaping the trees by hand was passed on directly from the local tribes to the North American fur trade[19] inhabiting this region from the 1700s.
Their uses varied from pointing out a fresh water source off a main route, to indicating exposed deposits of flint, copper, lead and other mineral resources that may have been important to Native American for medicinal and ceremonial purposes, including the shaping of council circles.
They bent trees over to form an arch, and secured them to a stake in the ground or tied them to a large stone with a leather strap or vine.
[23] In a culture based on hunting and gathering, the hunter was trained from childhood to recognize horizontal shapes in the forest in hopes that it was wild game.
The shape itself not only stood out horizontally in a vertical world at approximately the height of game, but also was visible above snowfall in the Great Lakes region.
One early protest, in the form of a letter to the editor of the Chicago Record-Herald dated November 10, 1911, presents points of contention that should be considered today.
Following publishing of Holt's letter, Valentine Smith, Head Regent of the Fort Dearborn Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, offered a rebuttal, citing authorities who supported the plaque.
Holt wrote: To the Editor: The erection of a bronze tablet to mark "The Indian Trail Tree" at Glencoe ought not to pass unchallenged.
It may be a pity to spoil a petty conceit, but it is much worse to invent a historical incident and to commemorate it by a tablet which must always discredit the perpetrators, the intelligence of the period and the trustworthiness of history.
If there were no living witnesses to the incident, the theory advanced would be indefensible upon three grounds: First—A tree does not grow upward in the manner assumed by the inventor of the "discovery."
To the Editor: As chairman of the committee of the Chicago Daughters of the American Revolution which erected this bronze table, I have decided to reply to the criticisms of George H. Holt.
Moreover, the use of "trail" trees so marked is not doubted by Jens Jensen a member of the outer park belt commission, City Forester Prost and other experts.
