INDIANS TAUGHT PIONEERS OF WILDERNESS RESOURCES

From the time Cape Girardeau became the home of pioneers, the major concern was food, especially if they arrived after it was too late to plant a garden.

Indians of the area who befriended them taught them many things, although they resented their intrusion.

Extremely large oak trees grew in heavy, wild plantings throughout the forests. The oak was of two varieties, white and black. The Europeans knew the black oak because it grew well in Europe, but not the white oak. It was American.

The white oak had many uses for the settlers. It made good houses, furniture, boats, trestles and ties. The furniture was strong and polished well, and since few pieces of furniture could be taken west in a wagon, furniture had to be made after the settlers arrived. They also learned about containers; barrels, (used later for whisky) could be made from white oak. Wherever the white oak grew the soil was rich, and gardens could be planted and houses built.

Post oaks made fences to protect the cabin from wild animals, but post oaks were really too valuable for that. Cedar would do, at first. The land had to be cleared for a house, garden, and then farmland.

The chestnut oak was very important. The nuts were large one and a half to two inches in diameter and were sweet when roasted. They could be used in cooking or to make brew for coffee. Coffee was obtainable, but during the Civil War southerners used chestnuts because they could not get coffee.

The pin oak is a member of the black oak family. It made good, wooden pins. Settlers had to make their building materials. The wooden pegs adjusted to changing temperature.

The scrub oak made a picturesque yard decoration. The foliage was colorful in the fall and spring flowers had a pleasant aroma. The foliage protected the cabin from the wind.

The Indians taught the settlers about maple trees. There were 10 kinds of maples, but the sugar maple was the one to plant. From it sugar could be caught and cooked, then used for many things.

The red maple was the one to plant if your wife wanted pretty furniture. From its bird's eye, maple wood was cut and made into furniture that would later look like it was made of gold. It was filled with beautiful markings. The Indians liked bird's eye wood.

The elm trees could not be overlooked. Elms grew in magnificent grandeur throughout the Cape Girardeau area. When Louis Lorimier selected a piece of land as a burial site for his wife, Charlotte Pemanpieth Bougainville, to be laid to rest when she died, March 23, 1808, he selected a plot shaded by an enormous elm tree. Many years later a storm and lightening damaged the tree, and, since age and disease have taken their tolls, the tree was removed. The DAR's made some souvenir blocks from the wood and sold them to put steps into the cemetery.

The Sanford Chapter of the Colonial Dames (Daughters of American Colonies) replanted a tree, selecting a sturdy pin oak instead of an elm because of elm disease. It was planted Feb. 26, 1962.

The rock elm that grows in Cape Girardeau was used by Indians and settlers to make handles for mallets, wheels, hubs, and other kinds of tools. It is very hard wood.

The English elm is used for shade, and today is used in parks, as is the Chinese elm. The latter is short-lived, and is used to obtain shade quickly. The settlers used the slippery elm to make cough syrup and cough drops for colds and other throat infections. They made their medicines and used home remedies.

The nut trees were valuable. They used many of them in cooking, such as the oil form the butternut tree, although sometimes it was bitter. Black walnut, pecan, chestnuts and shell barks, the woods had many different kinds of nuts, if the squirrels did not collect them first.

The sycamore made good cutting blocks on which to prepare meat and skins of wild animals. It made hot fires, although sometimes it was hard to start.

Baskets were important to Indians and became important to pioneers. Flexible slates were made from the ash maple for carrying baskets.

Birch trees made canoes, whipping rods for the barn, and poles for many things. The rods were flexible. Years later orchestra conductors would prefer them for batons. The Indians are still teaching us how to use some of America's native gifts.

The "toothache tree" or pepper tree or "sting tree" was something no pioneer family could be without. It came from the swamps, and there was much swamp land south of Cape Girardeau and Jackson. When a toothache tormented someone in the family, the medicine from the toothache tree was appreciated.

The Indians did not write directions and lessons in a book because they could not write. Instead, the knowledge was in their minds.

The pioneers had to learn, too. They could not write either, unless they had had an opportunity to go to school before they headed west in a covered wagon. There was so much to learn.