The Oaks

What if the oaks of South Westnedge Park could talk? What would they tell us?

There are ways of getting information out of the trees through basic dendrology. There are three major species of oak in this park--bur oak, white oak, and red oak--each with its own rate of growth. By calculating the diameter of the tree at breat height by its specific growth factor, one can estimate the age of a specific tree.

People have asked this question before. A survey of trees in 1971 took place along S. Westnedge Avenue. Another survey by Gale Akins produced a map. Our team conducted our own survey of the grounds to duplicate this work. We found that many of the oak trees of South Westnege have stood there for hundreds of years. Most are older than the cemetery and settlement.

They have remained in the park, silently observing as the land has changed hands from the Burdick family to the city and changed use, first becoming a cemetery, then a park. The earliest of the trees, a Bur Oak, is estimated to date back to around 1712, making it over 300 years old. Around 2/3 of the old oak trees have been around since before the cemetery was established, and about 1/4 of them date back to the period when the cemetery was in use. Only a few of them, about 10%, are younger than the cemetery.

This space was one of the many “oak openings” that settlers encountered as they arrived in Michigan. In fact, one of the earliest mentions of the term was by James Fenimore Cooper, regarding Kalamazoo itself:

“The trees, with very few exceptions, were what is called the 'burr-oak,' a small variety of a very extensive genus; and the spaces between them, always irregular, and often of singular beauty, have obtained the name of 'openings'; the two terms combined giving their appellation to this particular species of native forest, under the name of 'Oak Openings.'”1

It is interesting to note that the trees have been in the park for so long, despite the fact that their roots would likely have made it quite difficult to dig the graves. Gravediggers would have had to either dig through and cut the roots or work around them. Considering that several of the trees would have been over 100 years old by 1862, when the cemetery was no longer in use, this would not have been an easy task. In fact, the oldest tree would’ve been around 150 years old by this time. Mature Bur oaks can grow to be well over 50 feet tall, with roots spreading over 40 feet, complicating the task of gravedigging.2

[1] James Fenimore Cooper, The Oak Openings; or the Bee-Hunter, 1848, Houghton, Mifflin and Company

[2] https://www.fs.usda.gov/database/feis/plants/tree/quemac/all.html