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Since the first Europeans
ascended the Allegheny Front, the area now called Dolly Sods has
been recognized as a unique place.
“…we had very
difficult access to the top of the Allegheny mountain where [there]
was a precipice about 16 feet high and [we] were hard
set to get a place where there was any probability of our ascending.
When we had gained the summit there was a level as far as we could
see to right and left clear of timber about a quarter of a mile
wide covered with large flat rocks and marshy tho on top of the
highest mountain I ever saw…” Thomas Lewis, October
13, 1746.
Thomas Lewis
recorded his impressions and difficulties in traversing the area
as a surveyor for Lord Fairfax. The Fairfax Line, marking
the boundary of Lord Fairfax’s grant, was surveyed in 1746.
Lewis’ journal provides the earliest written record of the
area’s natural condition. The forests and bogs they
crossed between the Allegheny Front and what is now Canaan Valley
was the most difficult terrain they encountered.
“…the swamp,
(which is very uncommon in places of ye kind) is prodigiously
full of rocks and cavities, those covered over with a very luxuriant
kind of moss of a considerable depth. The fallen trees,
of which there was great numbers and naturally large, were vastly
improven in bulk with their coats of moss. The Spruce pines
of which there are great plenty, their roots grow out on all sides
from the trunk a considerable height above the surface, covered
over and joined together in such a manner as makes their roots
appear like slimey globs. The Laurel and Ivy as thick as
they can grow whose branches growing of an extraordinary length
are so well woven together that without cutting it away it would
be impossible to force through them… from the beginning of
the time we entered the swamp I did not see a plane big enough
for a man to lie on or horse to stand…” Thomas Lewis,
1746.
Since Thomas Lewis
crossed the Sods, the area has changed considerably. Logging
of the great forests started as early as the 1850’s.
Areas burned repeatedly after being logged, eventually removing
the duff and organic matter. It is estimated that in some
areas, as much as six feet of organic topsoil was lost.
The heath vegetation increased due to the thinner soil.
Timber cutting on the plateau may have caused the water table
to rise, since there were no longer huge trees drawing water in
and releasing it to the air. This increase in surface water
restricted the growth of new forests and expanded the bogs.
Logging reached its peak around the turn of the 20th
century, after which many of the open areas were used for grazing
by the Dahle (hence “Dolly”) family and others.
Severe floods, often caused by east coast hurricanes, ravished
the lower elevations and scoured the canyon bottom numerous times,
most recently in 1985, 1992, 1994, and 5 times in 1996, ending
with hurricane Fran. This changed the nature of Red Creek
from a quiet stream of beaver ponds and lush vegetation to its
current look of tumbled rocks and deadfalls.
Most of the lands
now called Dolly Sods were acquired by the federal government
between 1916 and 1939 under Weeks Act authority and included in
the Monongahela National Forest. Reforestation efforts by
the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) during the 1930’s established
red pine and spruce plantations on about 727 acres. The
CCC’s also built the roads that now cross the area.
Beginning in August of 1943, the military used the area for artillery
and mortar practice and as a maneuver area as training for involvement
in World War II. Timber had regrown in the Red Creek drainage
to the point where some timber cutting resumed in the 1960’s.
In 1970, 10,200 acres of the Sods were designated a National Forest
Scenic
Area. The Dolly
Sods Wilderness was created
in 1975 and includes 10,215 acres, but the boundaries do not coincide
with the Scenic
Area boundaries.
Today, 2,268 acres remain as Scenic
Area and 202 acres west
of the current Wilderness boundary were dropped from any special
designation. In 1991, 6,168 acres north of the Wilderness
and west of the Scenic
Area were purchased and
dubbed “Dolly Sods North”. In these areas, trails
follow old roads and logging railroad grades; hikers and hunters
have replaced loggers and farmers. Thousands of visitors
now drive, with relative ease, to Bear Rocks and peer over the
precipice that gave Thomas Lewis so much difficulty. It
is now hard to imagine why his words upon leaving the area were:
“Never
was any poor creature in such a condition as we were in, nor ever
was a criminal more glad by having made his escape out of prison
as we were to get rid of those accursed laurels.”
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