Rumbarger Cemetery Dubios PA Arborvitae

Rumbarger Cemetery Dubois, PA

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TOPIC: Arborvirtea
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/7b57ce25a79d7286?hl=en
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== 1 of 3 ==
Date: Wed, Aug 13 2008 12:02 pm
From: "Edward Forrest Frank"

ENTS,

I am sure many of you are most familiar with arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis) or Northern White Cedar as an ornamental and landscaping shrub or small tree. Their native range includes northeastern United States and southern Canada, and can be found growing in the wild in these areas.

Range of Thuja Occidentalis

They are an interesting tree in terms of dendrochronology as well. The Gynosperm database reports http://www.conifers.org/cu/th/occidentalis.htm "The oldest living cedar that we have lives on a cliff face and it germinated in 952 A.D. (i.e. 1051 years old). This was determined from a cross-dated tree-ring count back to 1039 A.D. plus an estimated 87 years lost from the pith area. The oldest dead white cedar I've found had a tree-ring count of 1,653 years. This is a pith date from the base. Another white cedar with a ring count of 1,567 years was estimated to be missing 323 rings from its base, thus an estimated age of 1,890 years" (Kelly and Larson 1997, and P.E. Kelly e-mail 15-Nov-2002).

Thuja Occidentalis

American Forests lists as its national champion a specimen 255 inches in girth, 76 feet tall, with a spread of 42 in Allegheny, Virginia. Those numbers of course are unconfirmed. The ENTS listing for the species has a maximum height of 86 feet in the Porcupine Mountains State Park of Michigan by Frelich and Jost, and a maximum girth of 186 inches in South Island, Michigan. by Ernie Ostuno and lee Frelich http://www.nativetreesociety.org/fieldtrips/michigan/manitou/south_manitou_island.htm

The specimens that caught my attention however, were not that impressive of a size or age. I drove past the old Rumbarger Cemetery in Dubois on a weekly basis. In the back portion of the cemetery were a series of arborvitae of respectable size, so I stopped last evening and measured several of them.

Rumbarger Cemetery, Dubois, PA

They were generally similar in size, were open grown, and likely were planted in the same time frame. The map above denotes the location of trees I measured. Some other moderate sized spruces are present in this area, but were not measured. There are also perhaps another dozen or so smaller but still good size arborvitae in the lot that were not measured.

Tree #1	Tree #6a and 6b
Tree #7	Tree #8, the largest specimen in the cemetery.

This is, as I said not a major discovery, but I thought I would pass on a note about this small trip and encourage others to post about their minor adventures in tree explorations.

Ed Frank

== 2 of 3 ==
Date: Wed, Aug 13 2008 12:53 pm
From: zacstew@bellsouth.net

Ed,

Nice discovery. I've had a recent fascination with conifers, especially the eastern native species. Cemeteries often contain very interesting and sizable trees like these. I need to get out and search for some nice cemetery trees myself one of these days! There are plenty of large cemeteries around here, and at least from the road they look like promising places to explore. And of course, I'm very interested in genealogy and such as well.

~ Zac

== 2 of 2 ==
Date: Thurs, Aug 14 2008 8:25 am
From: "Edward Forrest Frank"

ENTS,

Here is some more information on the Cemetery itself:

Clearfield County Comprehensive Plan
2006 Update

http://www.planning.clearfieldco.org/Comprehensive_Plan/7_Chapter_4_-_History__Resource_Invent___Preservation_Plan.pdf

44. Rumbarger Cemetery
In the 1890s, the DuBois Cemetery Association designed and developed a parcel of land in the Rumbarger settlement (now N. Main Street) for a cemetery to serve the early settlers. It was known as the "DuBois Cemetery," but due to its location, was always referred to as Rumbarger Cemetery. Because of the shortage of land, this cemetery survived for a very short period of time. It reached its limitations and with no provisions for perpetual care, the cemetery fell into slow disrepair, standing in a state of near abandonment for many decades. Through the perseverance and never-ending hard work of the late Mr. Wallace W. Lindsay of DuBois, assisted in earlier years by Adrian Bakas and Ed Heffner, the old "Rumbarger" was transformed from an eyesore of overgrown brush, trees, and litter to reveal a neat well-groomed cemetery the citizens of DuBois can be proud of. One of the greatest accomplishments of these efforts was to uncover the G.A.R. circle complete with a bronze plaque inset into a stone marker and a twin pair of Civil War cannons believed to be the only two of their kind in the State.

(I will note that many other volunteers also helped clean out the brush from the cemetery, myself included, but are not credited in any of the documents. Certain people seem to want all the credit for the work.)

Ed Frank

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