Bent Trees as Silent Guides

If you live in or around Mentone for more than a few days, you will become infatuated with the rich role DeKalb County played in the development of the South. Trails were cut across ridges and connected in valleys where settlements formed. Many of these trails would someday become the roads we use today. Trade was one of the main reasons for this in the 1700s and 1800s.

Commerce was sparse, and needs were many for the pioneers of Alabama. Boundaries were also a reason for many of these trails. Indians needed them, and later pioneers had to know them well in order to keep early travel safe. Trail marking was accomplished by several means. Stones were sometimes piled along the way to show if a trail was going left, right, or straight ahead. The piles of stones were called cairns. You can still find them in many parks, reminding us of less sophisticated navigation. Slash marks on trees also indicated the continuation of the trails, water sources, and directions of travel.

But what we are focusing on here is trail trees. The most iconic trail tree in Mentone has to be at the entrance to Bankhead Cemetery. The exact age of this oak is difficult to determine, but it has seen a couple hundred sunrises for sure. This tree probably marked the cemetery, but it also could have been a marker for the Old Summerville Road from Mentone to Summerville, Georgia. This road is still visible but not usable between Mentone Community Church and the tree.

Burial places were often marked by trail trees, as were ceremonial sites. Ridges were favorite trails, because travelers didn’t have to forge streams. Walking a ridge will bring you to some older trees that may not have been cut over. A visit to our library might yield old maps that others have already traveled. Books such as Indian Trails of the Warrior Mountains by Ricky Butch Walker and Lamar Marshall give illustrated maps and references to North and Central Alabama. Mentone is not mentioned by name, but you can see maps of the area.

As late as 100 years ago, vehicles were scarce on the mountain. Trails for wagons and such were still the main means of transportation. Most modes of transportation had a critter pulling it, and that critter needed water. Marking trails and showing where you could water them and refresh yourself was critical. Still, the similarity of multiple bent trees on our property, each pointing toward springs or ridge trails, invites deeper investigation.

Other names for trail trees, such as signal trees and Indian marker trees, shine a new light on their importance — locating campsites, food sources, natural medicines, and boundaries, to name a few.

How were these trees formed? A young tree was bent over at an angle to identify what was being marked. The bent portion was lashed to a stake in the ground and left to naturally mark what you wanted. The lashing decayed with time, releasing the tree to continue to grow up again, but with a crook in it forever.

As you can see, these bent trees served a lot of purposes, and you can find them if you do your homework. There are several groups across the country that search out trees in their areas, and a couple even chart them across the entire country. An example is Mountain Stewards / Indian Trail Tree Project. This organization (based in north Georgia) maintains a database of “Indian marker trees” (also called trail trees) and invites public submissions. Maybe someone from our area could start documentation around Mentone. Submissions of coordinates, photos, compass orientation, and descriptive notes all assist in assessing whether a bent tree is likely intentional or merely a natural oddity.

I have only been interested in these for a few years, and I suspect others have preceded me. I hope I might stir some new interest.

BY DOUG PERKINS