Kimberly run preserve

In the late Pleistocene (14,000-10,500 BP), the ice sheet that had reached to mid-Pennsylvania began to retreat. At about 12,700 BP tree pollen sharply increased at The Glades, indicating a replacement of tundra vegetation with an open boreal woodland, including widely-spaced spruce and jack or red pine. At this time, pollen of oaks, ash and hornbeam appeared. This deciduous tree pollen is interpreted as having blown in from lower elevations, perhaps aided by a change in prevailing winds.

Evidence of the Pleistocene fauna of the region comes from Cumberland Cave, in northern Allegany County, Maryland (Gidley and Gazin, 1933, Holman, 1977). A former 100 foot-deep limestone sinkhole that was intercepted by a railroad cut, this cave accumulated remains of a wide variety of vertebrates. Among the bones are those of many animals still in the region today, such as slimy salamander (Plethodon glutinosus), box turtle (Terrapene carolina), rattlesnake (Croatalus horridus), ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbellus) , short-tailed shrew (Blarina brevicauda), big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus), white-footed mouse (Peromyscus leucopus), and white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). However, the mammalian fauna is interesting, among many reasons, for having several animals now extinct, such as mastodont (Mammut cf. americanus) or no longer living in eastern North America, such as tapir (Tapirus sp.) and horse (Equus sp.). This is in contrast with the mostly modern herpetofauna from the same site. The mammalian fauna of Cumberland Cave is also characteristic of colder (e.g. wolverine, Gulo gidleyi) and mixed forest-grassland habitat (e.g. badger, Taxidea marylandica), as might be expected from the Pleistocene pollen evidence from the region. It may be important to note that the Pleistocene age of the fauna at Cumberland Cave is interpreted from the mammalian fossil assemblage and not from direct evidence such as radiocarbon dating.

Holocene (10,500 BP to present) vegetation at The Glades moved toward a mixed conifer-hardwood forest, beginning with a sharp increase in white pine and birch that indicates a warming climate. Hemlock pollen was for the first time consistently represented. At about 5,000 BP deciduous trees became most abundant in the pollen record, dominated by oak. Beech, chestnut and hickory attain successive maxima, while hemlock pollen percentage declines and spruce and pine are present at low levels.

It is important to remember that these pollen numbers are a percentage of total pollen, not absolute pollen amounts, so they do not necessarily represent abundance of certain species. Nor do they necessarily represent relative abundance of plant species, because pollen production and fertilization strategies (for example, wind-borne vs. insect-pollinated) vary between species.

Human presence in North America may have begun as early as 40,000 BP, and humans were in eastern North America by at least 12,000 years BP. These first Paleo-Indians were nomadic big game hunters of the Clovis culture, named for their slender fluted knife and spear points first discovered at Clovis, New Mexico. The extinction of many of North America’s large mammals, such as woolly mammoth, at the time of human expansion across the continent approximately 10,000-15,000 BP was perhaps due to a combination of hunting and climate change as ice sheets retreated. Near Meyersdale is the site of the earliest known occupation in Somerset County, at about 12,000 years BP.

In the subsequent Archaic culture, from approximately 8,000 to 3,000 BP, Native American food sources broadened to include small game, fish, and gathering of wild plants. Many specialized tools and skills were developed - dogs were domesticated, boats were constructed, cloths and baskets were woven, and ceramics were made. The earliest artifacts from a second archeological site near Myersdale date to this period.

With the beginning of the Middle Archaic (8,500-5,000 BP) a regional Native American population increase is evident, with artifact sites now at major and minor floodplains, swamp margins, open valleys, major and minor ridges, and stream headwater zones (Wall, 1981). During this time, Native American projectile points changed, and this is believed to indicate a shift toward exploitation of a greater variety of habitats, at approximately the same time that deciduous forest and associated fauna were increasing. The newer, “Kirk,” points tend to be made of local rather than imported materials, and are increasingly found on upland as well as floodplain and swamp sites (Wall, 1981).

By the Late Archaic (5,000-3,000 BP), land use patterns intensified, with increased emphasis on the floodplains of these three rivers. With the beginning of the Woodland Period, around 3,000 BP, the variety and number of sites used by Native Americans drastically decreased, with activity confined to larger wetlands and floodplains. This may be the result of a shift to a more agricultural existence and de-emphasis on hunting (Wall, 1981).

The Monongahela Woodland Culture flourished in western Pennsylvania from 1,100 to 400 BP. Three Somerset County archeological sites near Myersdale represent this culture (Boyd, 2000; Stahl, 2002). Villages had several houses with attached storage pits, and an open plaza. Villages were surrounded by log palisades. Foods included domesticated squash beans, corn and sunflower, as well as acorn, black walnut, butternut and hickory hulls. Animal remains included rattlesnake, turtle, salamander, fish, beaver, deer, elk, squirrel, rabbit, geese, turkey and bear.

The most recent Monongahela occupation of Somerset County ended approximately 400 years BP. By the time of European contact in western Maryland and southwestern Pennsylvania, these people had been replaced by Iroquois, Shawnee and other Native Americans. Though the underlying causes of this replacement remain uncertain, disease, declining food production related to climate, and warfare are implicated.

King Charles II of England granted William Penn a charter to establish a colony in the New World in 1681. In 1683 the first bounty was offered on wolves in the new colony. The first game law protecting deer was enacted by provincial governor Sir William Keith in 1721, allowing deer to be hunted only from July 1 to January 1.

In 1747 a group of English Colonial investors, including Thomas Cresap and Lawrence and Augustine Washington, formed the Ohio Trading Company (Lowdermilk, 1878). The Ohio Trading Company was granted 500,000 acres between the Monongahela and Kanawha Rivers, and Christopher Gist was employed to explore the region (Lowdermilk, 1878). The Ohio Company established a fur trading post on Will’s Creek in Maryland, and conducted business with the Native Americans, but was too wary of them to establish posts further west.

Meanwhile the French began to establish military posts in the upper Ohio drainage to the north and west. In 1749 the governor of Canada sent Captain Celeron de Bienville to descend the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers, claiming for France the same lands that England claimed through John Cabot’s landing on the continent in 1497 and subsequent treaties with Iroquois Native Americans. Neither European side recognized the rights of the inhabitants, but vied for Native American friendship and assistance against their enemy.

The British sent George Washington to explore the region, encourage the friendship of the Native Americans, and to assert their claim with the French. Washington picked a site at the Forks of the Ohio, and Captain William Trent was sent to build a British fort there, at what is now Pittsburgh (Lowdermilk, 1878). But while the Fort was under construction in 1754, a large French force evicted the English and renamed the post Fort Duquesne.

This same year a British military post was established at Cumberland, to serve as the primary point from which to defend British land claims against the French. Washington, on his way west with troops to reinforce the English at the Forks of the Ohio, learned that the post had been usurped by the French. Although outnumbered, Washington pressed on and engaged a small French unit, killing its leader. While retreating, Washington’s troops were caught by French forces in western Pennsylvania at a hastily-constructed “Fort Necessity,” in nearby Fayette County and were forced to surrender. This incident is considered the beginning of the French and Indian War.

In 1755, forces under General Edward Braddock left from Fort Cumberland, building a road to haul supplies and cannon as they went. They followed a route blazed years earlier by Thomas Cresap and the Native American Nemacolin, “Nemacolin’s Trail,” which passed through southern Somerset County. This road eventually became the “National Road,” now US Rt. 40. Although Braddock met with a disastrous defeat near Fort Duquesne at the hands of French and Indian forces, the British of course eventually prevailed in their claim over the central portion of the continent. The Forbes Road, now the Lincoln Highway (US Rt. 30), was begun in 1758 during another English march that re-took Ft. Duquesne.

After Braddock’s defeat and until the fall of Ft. Duquesne in 1758 there were raids by Native Americans against European settlers across the Appalachian Plateau, including massacres and kidnappings. During this time there were no settlers in what is now Somerset County (Cassady, 1932). After hostilities subsided, the first permanent European settlers came to the central Appalachian Plateau. According to early travelers in Somerset County, John Miller’s family was present on Allegheny Mountain prior to 1762 (Cassady, 1932). Fort Stony Creek was also and established settlement in 1762.

In 1767 English surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon established Pennsylvania’s southern boundary, now called the Mason-Dixon Line. In 1768 western Pennsylvania was ceded to Thomas and Richard Penn by the Iroquois at Fort Stanwix, New York, for 10,000 English pounds.

Harmon Husband, one of the settlers who established the village of Somerset, made his first journey to the region in 1771, passing through Cumberland on his way west. During the period of the American Revolution there were scattered Native American raids again across the area, though no major hostilities between British and Colonial forces in the region.

Buffalo were extirpated from the Somerset County area sometime in the early 1800’s. The last ones killed at a lake south of Berlin

Somerset County was established in 1779, from western Bedford County. By the 1790’s there were sawmills in Somerset County. In 1795 there were 868 farms (Cassady, 1932).

In 1779 there was a “Great Snow,” during which it snowed almost continuously for 40 days (Cassady, 1932). Average snow depth was between four and five feet. In 1782 the Bald Eagle was adopted as our national emblem (Pennsylvania Game Commission).

By 1800 there were 10,188 people in Somerset County (Cassady, 1932). When Somerset County was established in 1795 there were 868 farms, and by 1832 there were 3,341. They grew primarily corn, wheat, oats, rye, buckwheat, potatoes, alfalfa and hay. The Somerset Agricultural Society was formed in 1858.

The property that is now the Kimberly Run Preserve appears in an 1813 survey as land owned by Richard Brown (Somerset County Tax Records, Vol 2 p 84,No. 969). Kimberly Run is illustrated but unnamed, and Rt. 219 appears as the “Road from Somerset to Cumberland”. A deed of a portion of this land transferred from Brown to Peter Kimmel in 1813 gives some hints as to the vegetation of the area, referring to a “pine,” “plum,” chestnut,” and two “white oak” trees serving as boundary markers.

Somerset County’s first schools were in Addison Township in 1834. Wolves were apparently gone from Somerset County by 1840 (Cassady, 1932). The first coal was mined in Somerset County in 1810, with commercial coal mining beginning in 1872 near Myersdale.

In 1846 the Somerset County House of Employment or “Poor House” opened on what is now Rt. 31 north of the Kimberly Run Preserve (Koontz, 1906; Figure 3). Benjamin Kimmell, Absalom Casebeer and Joseph Imhoff were the first directors, and they purchased a 265-acre farm known as “Fairview” to support the residents.

Figure 3. Postcard of House of Employment (Poor House),

Somerset County, PA, from Obaker.