History wears a ring

Historic preservation students bore into logs for clues

By Sam Blackwell ~ Southeast Missourian

STE. GENEVIEVE, Mo. -- Years ago, Rich Guyette was an artist who was writing a book about a tree. His curiosity about how old the tree was led him to become a graduate student in forestry.

Now the University of Missouri forestry professor is a dendrochronologist, a scientist who dates past events through the study of tree rings.

Guyette was at the Delassus-Kern House just south of Ste. Genevieve earlier this week instructing students in the Southeast Historic Preservation Field School in taking core samples from the logs in the 19th-century house. They used both a compressor-powered archaeological borer and a smaller version that does the job by hand.

Studying tree rings is like playing "Name That Tune," Guyette says.

Temperature changes affect tree rings. Drought narrows them. Frost injures the cells. Certain years serve as markers for the dendrochronologists.

"1715 was a good frost year," Guyette says.

Examining the more than 100 rings in a core sample bored from a log or a tree, Guyette and other dendrochronologists can go to the International Tree Ring Data Bank and use computer modeling to discern a climate pattern that helps them deduce the age of the wood and its environmental history.

The pattern could be compared to the notes in a song. The sequence makes them meaningful.

The International Tree Ring Data Bank contains as many as 4,000 tree ring chronologies from around the world. The database was compiled by studying old, living trees with known sequences of growth and comparing them with trees of unknown age. Where the rings match, scientists can go back in time.

The field school has been developing the Delassus-Kern House's history through archaeological digs, researching documents and analyzing the construction of the house itself. They know it's a varied history that includes ownership by French, German and Anglo families. In many ways it reflects the history of Ste. Genevieve itself.

The exterior logs have been dated to 1793, though other evidence leads the historical researchers to believe the house wasn't built until about 1830. Guyette was in town trying to figure out whether the logs in an interior room might have been the exterior wall at one time. It's another piece in the jigsaw puzzle any historic house presents, but especially this one, which has had so many influences, additions and uses.

Ready to raze

From the outside, the Delassus-Kern House looks ready for demolition. The inside is a mess, too. Right now the floor is littered with black plastic trash bags containing the finds from an archaeological dig on the grounds.

"Cleanliness is not our greatest virtue," says Dr. Bonnie Stepenoff, head of the Southeast Historic Preservation Program.

But the house actually stores much information about Ste. Genevieve's history for those who know how to find it.

"We don't care if we ever find all the answers," Stepenoff says. "Our goal is always to teach students to look at buildings and see more than the surface."

Julie Elgin, a junior historic preservation major from St. Louis, is planning a career as an historic site administrator. Expertise in dendrochronology or paint might not be required, but she says "If I learn how to do it, in the future I will appreciate historic sites more. I had no idea how you dated logs."

A report on the site's archaeological findings is due to be published soon.

The house also occupies a special location in Ste. Genevieve. It is adjacent to the historic Village of New Bourbon, the common fields where the early settlers planted their crops, and to an Indian mound. Built on a slight rise, the house has a striking view east to the Mississippi.

The house is owned by the state. Jim Baker, administrator of the Felix Valle House in Ste. Genevieve, says a decision about how to incorporate it into the system of historic buildings in Ste. Genevieve has not been made. The house could one day be opened to the public.

"We would have to approach the interpretive part from what people are capable of understanding," he says. "But it represents well-defined periods of history."

This is the sixth summer the field school has worked in Ste. Genevieve. It has been visited this summer by archaeologists and an expert in paint analysis. Wednesday, cultural resource preservationist James Denny made a presentation on the Lewis and Clark Trail and University of Missouri geography professor Dr. Walter Schroeder delivered a lecture on the division of land in the Ste. Genevieve District.

Hilliard Goldman, owner of the Green Tree Tavern in Ste. Genevieve, is meticulously restoring the 1791 building. The resident of Kirkwood, Mo., came to the field school to ask Guyette questions that will help with his own project.

Urban renewal obliterated most of the French architectural influence in America but thankfully skipped Ste. Genevieve, the retired history teacher says.

"It's medieval France right here in the heartland of America."

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182