The Pre-Euro-American Vegetation Cover Surrounding Wisconsin's Deepest Inland Natural lake

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Early Land Survey Field Notes

The original survey field notes recorded by the early land surveyors may provide the most comprehensive record of the pre-Euro-American vegetation cover. The original surveyors’ field notes are made available online by the Wisconsin Board of Commissioners of Public Lands (2023). The descriptions of the surveys and the techniques used that are recounted below are taken from the same source. The Public Land Survey System was created under the Land Ordinance of 1785, which was enacted into law by the United States Congress under the Articles of Confederation. The survey was conducted by the federal General Land Office, which was created by Congress in 1812, and is founded on the township, range and section grid upon which legal land ownership and land use is based on.

Surveys in what is now Wisconsin took place between 1832 and 1865, although surveys in a few townships with Indian reservations were not completed until later in the century (Sickley et al. 2000). Schulte and Mladenoff (2001) explained that the Public Land Survey records “generally provide their best description of presettlement vegetation when used in a relative way, analyzed over broad spatial extents and at coarse spatial resolutions, and used in conjunction with other historical data sources.”

The early land surveyors were instructed to record the location of the quarter and corner sections, the name and diameter of each bearing tree, as well as its compass bearing and the distance from the quarter and corner sections. Wherever possible, line trees that intersected section lines were recorded. Treeless habitats such as prairie and marshes required earthen mounds of soil or stone to mark the location of the corners. Wooden posts, approximately four inches square and two feet tall, were positioned at section and quarter-section corners that were near to at least two bearing trees. Survey posts were marked with the township, range, and section numbers.

Measurements were obtained by using chains and links, in which one 66-foot chain consisted of 100 links and each link equaled 7.92 inches. Eighty chains are one mile. For example, the entry for T16N R13E, “South Between sections 27 & 28 3.28 [3 chains and 28 links] White oak 8,” is understood to mean that a white oak eight inches in diameter occurs 216.48 feet south of where sections 21, 22, 27 and 28 intersect.

The study area included the four survey townships surrounding Green Lake where the interior section lines from the field notes were examined to quantify tree data (Figure 2). According to the Public Land Survey System which is accessible online, the government land surveys for Green Lake County were conducted from 1834 to 1835 and in 1851. The survey townships (abbreviated names used here referring to the township direction relative to Green Lake in parentheses) of T15N R13E (SE Lake) and T16N R13E (NE Lake) were surveyed in 1834 and 1835, while those of T15N R12E (SW Lake) and T16N R12E (NW Lake) were completed in 1851.

The four present-day civil townships bordering Green Lake roughly correspond to the four survey townships. Unlike a 36 square miles survey township, a civil township delineates the units of local government surrounding Green Lake and include the townships of Green Lake, Brooklyn, Marquette, and Princeton (Figure 3).

FIGURE 3.

A map of the four presentday civil townships (shaded) that delineate the units of local government surrounding Green Lake and include the townships of Green Lake, Brooklyn, Marquette, and Princeton. The civil townships roughly correspond to the survey townships (Green Lake County Land Use Planning and Zoning Department 2023).

The field notes data that were compiled and summarized include the identification of line and bearing trees, the mean distance in links from the quarter and corner section posts to bearing trees, tree diameters and class size distribution of trees intersecting section lines, and a calculation of the number of trees per acre and canopy cover for each survey township.

The method of calculating the density of trees per acre is equal to [43,560 square feet per acre]/d² where d is the average distance between the sample point and all the bearing trees associated with the sample point (Cottam and Curtis 1956). The canopy cover was determined by using a 50% canopy cover in oak savannas equivalent to 19 trees per acre (Anderson and Anderson 1975).

Literature Survey

Published floras based on field observations and collected specimen vouchers housed in the Neil A. Harriman Herbarium (OSH) at University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh were examined to provide a more comprehensive knowledge of the early vegetation cover for the area (see, e.g., Eddy 1996, 1999, 2001, 2005).

Nomenclature follows the Online Virtual Flora of Wisconsin (2023), which in turn is based on a number of sources, including Voss and Reznicek (2012), the latest Flora of North America volumes, and recent monographs (Dr. Mary Ann Feist, personal communication).

Township, range and section are used to identify the place locations that are referred to on and nearby Green Lake (Rockford Map Publishers 2019). The same sites are also georeferenced in decimal degrees by means of Google Maps (2023) and the android/mac app onX Maps (2023).

Online literature searches via Google Scholar were conducted to identify sources that provided a broader overview of the original pre-Euro-American presettlement vegetation cover c.1830 throughout the southern half of Wisconsin and to the extent possible, most proximate to Green Lake County.

A map of the original vegetation cover for Green Lake County (Figure 4) was prepared by the Green Lake County Land Use Planning and Zoning Department (2023) using the Wisconsin DNR’s original vegetation polygon layer derived from a 1:500,000-scale map prepared by Robert W. Finley (Wisconsin DNR 2017a). Seven different polygons represent the county’s different plant community types along with a hydrographic area polygon.

FIGURE 4.

A map of the original vegetation cover for Green Lake County prepared by the Green Lake County Land Use Planning and Zoning Department and based on the Wisconsin DNR’s original vegetation polygons (Green Lake County Land Use Planning and Zoning Department 2023; Wisconsin DNR 2023).

Survey Records

The prevalence of oak savanna extends beyond the four survey townships surrounding Green Lake. Oak woodlands and oak openings accounted for a combined 58.9% of the total original vegetation cover in the county (Table 1). Oak woodlands represent the largest acreage with 107,900 acres, while oak openings accounted for 24,600 acres. Where the canopy was one-half or more open, surveyors frequently recorded the vegetation density qualitatively as “thinly timbered” or “scattering”, descriptive of the oak savanna transition from grassland to forest. Because the field notes do not consistently note the spacing between trees, it is possible that areas of what had been mapped as oak forest may have been in fact open woodlands and oak openings (Finley 1976).

In the four survey townships that were examined, survey section lines intersected with 17 species of trees (Table 2). Three species of Quercus account for 92% of the total number of trees recorded as line and bearing trees. These include Q. velutina, 24.5%; Q. alba, 31.9%; and Q. macrocarpa, 35.6%.

The field notes do not contain any records for northern red oak (Q. rubra) in any of the four townships examined. The species is, however, documented in every Wisconsin county except Shawano County, and it is not uncommon in Green Lake County (Online Virtual Flora of Wisconsin 2024). Likewise, Tans (1976) did not report any northern red oak recorded in the original survey field notes for Columbia County, bordering Green Lake County to the south.

Trees in three genera are identified in the field notes to genus only: Populus, Ulmus, and Salix. The field notes record “Aspen,” which refers to Populus tremuloides or P. grandidentata; “Elm” and “White elm” which probably refers to Ulmus rubra and U. americana, respectively; and “Willow,” which could refer to any number of native, larger diameter Salix species. Given the same area and wet habitat as black ash (Fraxinus nigra), it is probable that green ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica) was misidentified as white ash (Fraxinus americana), which is not documented for Green Lake County.

Tallgrass prairie occupied 32,700 acres on the uplands south of Green Lake (Green Lake County Land Use Planning and Zoning Department 2023). The field notes for SE LAKE and SW LAKE contain 44 entries of “Prairie” as line and bearing points. In the notes for SE LAKE, an entry for a corner section stated “Set post corner to sections 23 24 25 26 Made a mound of Earth and sods 3 feet square at base & 3 feet high Land rolling second rate South part thinly timbered with Blk W & Bur oak North part prairie.” Another entry states “Set post corner to sections 11 12 13 14 in prairie Made a mound Land rolling good prairie.”

Elsewhere where the loamy clay topsoil was thin, the field notes provided a brief description: “Land rolling second rate dry prairie.” Occasionally specific prairie flora was recorded, as for example: “Prairie level second rate Red root [also named New Jersey tea, Ceanothus americanus L.] rosin-weed [Silphium integrifolium Michx.] rose [Rosa spp.] willow [Salix spp.] etc.”

Trees were also scarce in certain wetlands in the four survey townships surrounding Green Lake. The field notes record 17 entries identified as “Marsh.” Marsh and sedge meadow, as along with other wetland communities, occupied 56,500 acres throughout the county’s Central Plain, with the majority of the acres associated with the Fox River, Lake Puckaway, and the White River Marsh Wildlife Area. Major wetlands immediately adjacent to Green Lake included areas of Silver Creek (Sections 23, 24 & 26 T16N R13E), Norwegian Bay (Sections 35 & 36 T16N R12E), and Dodge Memorial County Park (E ½ Section 15 T15N R12E).

Marsh and swamp habitats were associated with Green Lake’s main tributary, Silver Creek, on the east end of the lake. In SE LAKE between sections 13 and 24, the field notes states “Set quarter section post in marsh no trees too wet for mound.” The field notes summarized the area where the post corner was placed at sections 22 23 26 27: “Land first part swamp. Last part except marsh rolling second rate thinly timbered with W B & Bur oak.” Trees recorded in swamp areas included black ash (Fraxinus nigra), white ash (probably green ash, F. pennsylvanica), aspen (probably quaking aspen, Populus tremuloides), elm (probably red or slippery elm, Ulmus rubra) and willow (Salix spp.).

For the area west of Green Lake near Lake Puckaway and the Fox River, in SW LAKE between sections 16 & 17, we read this: “Set quarter section post in marsh no trees” and “Set corner sections 8 9 16 17 in marsh Tamk [Tamarack, Larix laricina] 14 [tree diameter] S65E [compass bearing] 7.74 [774 links] no other [trees].” Willow (Salix spp.) and aspen (P. tremuloides) were also recorded. A brief summary description following a quarter section post placed between sections 29 and 30 noted: “Land level marsh Grasses Bushes Flaggs [blue flag, Iris versicolor L. and/or I. virginica L.].”

In a study of the presettlement vegetation of Columbia County, Tans (1976) suggested that “It is probable that the surveyors selected oaks more often as bearing trees, and it is likely, too, that the oak forests were simply oak savannas which had become closed communities by growth of root sprouts in the absence of regular fires; they represented an early successional stage of forests.” This assessment is consistent with early anecdotal observations (Gillespy 1860; Sherwood 1854).

The size class distribution of the 776 line and bearing recorded during the original survey for the four townships surrounding Green Lake shows that the median size tree was in the 14–16-inch size class (Figure 6). The mean diameter of the black, white, and bur oaks combined for the four townships was 13-inches.

FIGURE 6.

Average diameter of trees intersected by interior line and bearing trees for the four survey townships surrounding Green Lake. Data obtained from the original survey field notes (Wisconsin Board of Commissioners of Public Lands 2023).

In township SW LAKE, along the southwest and west sides of the lake, 87 interior line and bearing trees were recorded for Q. macrocarpa, or 51% among the three oak species recorded. Q. macrocarpa is a reliable indicator for the presence of oak openings (Table 3). Aldo Leopold (1949) wrote in his “Bur Oak” essay for April from “A Sand County Almanac,” “Most of these groves of scattered veterans, known to the pioneers as ‘oak openings,’ consisted of bur oaks.” In comparison, for all Columbia County townships, oak openings were dominated by bur oak with 63–64% of the trees in the community (Tans 1976).

The ratios for the three species, black oak to white oak to bur oak, for the survey townships bordering Green Lake are: SW LAKE 1:1:4; SE LAKE 1:2:2; NW LAKE 1:1:1; and NE LAKE 1:2:2. In comparison to bur oak dominance in SW LAKE, oak savanna is most homogeneous in SW LAKE along the northwest side of the lake, with Q. alba, Q. macrocarpa and Q. velutina each represented by 33% of the total oaks.

The number of section corner and quarter samples, the mean number of links from post to tree, and the mean number of trees per acre for each of the four survey townships surrounding Green Lake are summarized in Table 4. The mean links from post to tree for townships SW LAKE (189 links) and SE LAKE (159) included one and two trees per acre, respectively. The canopy cover varied from 3% to 5% between the two townships.

The mean links from post to tree for townships NW LAKE (102 links) and SE LAKE (102 links) each included five trees per acre with a canopy cover of 13%. With a selection bias by surveyors for oaks used as bearing trees notwithstanding (Tans 1976), it is apparent that the vegetation cover in the townships surrounding Green Lake during the early survey was mostly open and thinly timbered oak savanna.

Depending upon soil substrate and moisture content, the canopy cover of oak openings and open woodlands would have ranged from a widely used criteria of 5%–30% or 5%–50%, thus representing a successional continuum from prairie to forest (Henderson and Epstein 1995). Cochrane and Iltis (2000) stated that a more contemporary definition of oak savannas used by ecologists are communities dominated by oaks with a mean canopy of more than 10% but less than 80%. The ground layer would have included grasses and sedges associated with mesic to dry prairies, but were largely forb-dominated, except in very sandy soils or in microhabitats with the greatest sun exposure (Leach and Givnish 1999).

Oak savannas are remarkably diverse. At small and larger spatial scales, the ground layer diversity of oak savannas exceeds that of prairies and forests (Leach and Givnish 1999). A floristic survey of 22 oak savanna remnants by Leach and Givnish (1999) reported 507 native plant species, or about 27% of the 1,873 species (Dr. John Zaborsky, personal communication) in Wisconsin’s native vascular flora (Spalink et al. 2018).

From the Wisconsin Plant Ecology Laboratory studies completed during the 1940s and 1950s, data from original point samples of various plant communities were used to assess how changes in the surrounding landscape affected the floristic composition (Curtis 1959). A set of 47 species prevalent in oak openings and their mean frequencies are listed by Curtis (1959). All 47 species have been documented to occur in Green Lake County (Eddy 1996, 2018), including three modal species whose occurrence are greater in oak openings than in any other Wisconsin plant community (Curtis 1959). These modal species are Heliopsis helianthoides (L.) Sweet, Ranunculus fascicularis Muhl. ex J.M. Bigelow, and Anticlea elegans (Pursh) Rydb. (synonym Zigadenus elegans (Pursh) Rydb.).

Prior to Euro-American settlement, oak savannas in southern Wisconsin accounted for approximately 5.5 million acres (Curtis 1959). Fire disturbance caused by lightning strikes and human activities are estimated to have occurred at 1–10-year intervals, maintaining a dynamic oak savanna ecology (Abrams 1992). By the latter half of the nineteenth century, the implementation of intensive agriculture, overgrazing, fire suppression, invasion of weedy native plants and aggressive exotics, and habitat fragmentation reduced the amount of intact remnant oak savanna that is reported as extant in the Wisconsin State Natural Heritage Inventory to approximately 500 acres of the original 5.5 million acres, or a mere 0.01% currently remaining (Henderson and Epstein 1995).

Curtis (1959) recognized the loss of oak savanna ecosystems, stating that “an oak savanna with an intact ground layer is the rarest plant community in Wisconsin today.” According to the Wisconsin DNR (2017b), the NatureServe Global Conservation Status global rank for oak opening is G1: Critically Impaired. The state ranking, S1, also indicates the status at the state level. Oak savannas remain one of the most endangered ecosystem types on earth.

The genus Quercus is represented by approximately 464 species worldwide, of which 91 species occur in North America, making it the largest tree genus in the northern hemisphere (Global Tree Campaign 2020). Tallamy (2021) asserts that oaks are vital keystone community members in the local food web, providing habitat and food for a diversity of animals, particularly insects. Apart from pests and diseases, land use development, non-regenerative agricultural practices, and the longevity and slow growth of oaks may make them more vulnerable to climate change (Global Tree Campaign 2020).

Historical Narratives

The historical record of the vegetation cover surrounding Green Lake based on the original survey field notes is further supported by studies of Native American influences on the vegetation and eyewitness accounts by early pioneers and settlers through published and unpublished narratives.

Native Americans were the earliest humans to influence the vegetation in ways mostly related to obtaining food (Curtis 1959). Strong circumstantial evidence suggests that use of fire by the Ho-Chunk Nation, the primary inhabitants of the region, indirectly and directly influenced the vegetation cover (Dorney 1981; Dorney and Dorney 1989). Controlled fires were used to drive wild game, clear land for gardens and to create buffers that protected campsites from wildfires in the spring and fall. Fire disturbance, caused naturally or by human activities maintained a dynamic mosaic of oak openings and open woodlands, prairie, and wetlands. These plant communities are fire-dependent and required periodic conflagrations for their perpetuation.

In June 1840, pioneer Anson Dart and his three sons, Putnam, Charles, and Richard, become the first permanent Euro-American settlers to row across Green Lake and stake their land claim one-half mile south of Sandstone Bluff near Twin Lakes, Green Lake Township, Sections 32 and 33, T16N, R13E (43.81751, -88.96514) (Heiple and Heiple 1976).

The landscape that included the original 80 acres acquired by Anson Dart in the NE ¼ section 5, T15N R13E was reconstituted from memory by Richard Dart (1910) when he explained: “There were no settlers there as yet, only wigwams of the Winnebago [Ho-chunk] grouped or scattered around the lake. There was no timber then, but oak and clay openings, with Green Lake prairie to the south.”

From 1843 and on, accelerated settlement resulted in significant changes in the vegetation. Even though commercial logging did not occur on any appreciable scale, oak woodlands played a vital role in the development of farming by furnishing fuel and the materials for building homes, barns, fences, and bridges. Richard Dart (1910) explained how the local timber resources were utilized when his family arrived in 1840:

We soon crossed the lake and reached our land [Section 5 T15N R13E], of which my father recognized the quarter-section corner. We lugged our stuff up by hand from the lake [near Sandstone Bluff], erected a shanty for shelter, and at once went to work to build a plank house. We split and hewed white oak [Quercus alba] planks, about two inches thick by six feet long, and set them upright, two lengths end-to-end twelve feet high, held together by grooved girts or stringers. We used poles for rafters and “shakes” for shingles, the latter shaved out of green oak.

Following settlement, the suppression of fire on landscapes resulted in significant changes in the vegetation cover. In a study of the factors that contributed to changes in vegetation patterns in presettlement southern Wisconsin, Leitner et al. (1991) reported that “alteration of the fire regime was most evident in the ecotones between prairie and forest, where savanna remnants were soon converted into closed Quercus [oak] forest.”

Anecdotal observations detailed by Gillespy (1860) of the county’s oak openings during early Euro-American settlement describe changes in vegetation cover that coincides with fire suppression and early farming:

The general face of the country, is undulating; neither hilly or extensive plains, (with the exception of high, broken lands around the marshes, in the south part of the county,) handsome rolling lands. The openings, in the first settlement of the county, were kept free from underbrush, by annual fires, which now are not frequent. Lands, which but a few years ago, presented the appearance of a well kept lawn, are now filling up with a thick underbrush. These openings are some of the finest lands in the State. Although the prairies are considered the most productive, yet by many of the settlers, the openings are considered more reliable, one year with another, for a crop; and in consideration of wood, water, with many other advantages they afford over the prairie, often selected in preference.

In Brooklyn Township, which includes portions of northern and eastern Green Lake shores, Gillespy (1860) reiterates a description of a dense undergrowth caused by the cessation of annual fires:

Lands covered, generally, with a thrifty growth of oaks, and as in most all other localities, a dense growth of underbrush, since the annual fires have ceased destroying young and tender plants sprouting from year to year.

In the present-day City of Green Lake between sections 21 and 28, T15N R13E, near the west end of Illinois Avenue and the former Oakwood Resort (43.8370, -88.9587), the field notes recorded “Land rolling second rate Thinly timbered with W B & Bur oaks”. Numerous field note entries record survey line summaries with the similar verbiage, e.g., at the corner sections 16, 17, 20 and 21, T15N R13E, one quarter mile east of the junction of State Highway 23 and North Street, near the Dartford Cemetery (43.8525 -88.9654): “Land rolling second rate Thinly timbered with W B and Bur oaks”.

The eyewitness account by Richard Dart (1910) noted the lack of forested lands around most of Green Lake in the mid-nineteenth century:

There was at this time no heavy timber around the lake, except at the foot [Silver Creek inlet], in the marshes only what were called “clay openings,” burned over each autumn by the prairie fires.

The “clay openings” are a reference to exposed clay loam on till plains and moraines where the soil layer is erodible and thin, ranging from depths of 0–5 feet and 5–50 feet above the dolomitic bedrock (Schmidt 1987).

Tallgrass prairie covered the level and rolling uplands in southeastern part of Green Lake County. Remnants of this prairie would later be named for the civils townships where they occur, Green Lake and Mackford prairies. Dart (1910) stated:

All the while, we were clearing and breaking land. It was thin and poor in the clay openings, and as yet we did not know how to farm to advantage. Father used to repair grist-mills and sawmills as far off as Watertown, leaving us boys to run the farm. Finally we got enough money together to go up on the prairie and buy a “forty” of better land, with richer soil.

Prairie and oak openings that bounded wetlands were frequently mentioned by early settlers and visitors in letters and journals. Julia Peck Sherwood, in a letter to her sister Harriet Sage and family dated August 28, 1854, described a trip from Dartford (renamed Green Lake in 1907) to Ripon.

Last Friday I went with Mr. S [William C. Sherwood] to Ripon, a village about seven miles from Dartford that was the farthest I have rode since I arrived here and the first time that I have past over any green prairie [State Highway 23 between Green Lake and Ripon]. It was a beautifully grand prospect to see one uninterrupted, unbroken undulating meadow as far as the eye could extend towards the Missippie [sic] with occasionally a herd of cattle of thirty or forty, they always keep in companys [sic]. The land was cultivated along where the road passed, or some of it was, but it looks strange to see so few fences where the country looks as if it had been cleared. Mr. S has no prairie, he has one large marsh that serves him for a meadow [wetlands bordering Green Lake Mill Pond], but all the cattle in the vicinity feed on it if they choose, but there is good pasturage in the woods here, the trees are so small and scattering. They are all oaks, and there are places that they call oak openings of many acres that there are no trees or stumps (Sherwood 1854).

From her description, it is plausible that Julia Peck Sherwood had observed oak grubs, small oaks with multiple stems that arise from oak seedlings whose tops are killed by fire. Oaks are uniquely adapted to fire and the grubs may remain alive for many years without growing into saplings. Johnson et al. (2019) reported that oak grubs may develop extensive root systems that are many years older than their living stems and can produce saplings when environmental conditions change that allows for sprout growth.

Trees, notably oaks, were harvested for lumber and fuel while savanna was converted to cropland. It was common practice to “green up the woods” for pasture by burning. These routine fires were started and left unattended to burn where they would. In some instances, controlled burns were practiced for safety precautions, as described by Dart (1910): “Every fall we had to burn round everything house, sheds, and stacks to save them from these fires that annually swept the prairies.”

Gillespy (1860) noted the lands utilized for pastures and farming:

The sandy lands of Brooklyn, St. Marie, Princeton, Marquette, Kingston, Seneca and part of the town of Berlin, with their never ending supply of hay and pasturage, are a paradise for cattle, and when the prairies and burr [bur] oak openings, by continual cropping and plowing, becomes exhausted, these lands will be sought for, with avidity, and realize what God has decreed, that the marshes are to be a never ending source of wealth to the owner.

The presence of prairies and savannas are frequently inferred or explicitly stated in the early land surveys throughout the survey townships in the Green Lake region. From the field notes of December 1834 for the area two miles southwest of Center House (43.7916, –88.9557), at the corner post of sections 16, 17, 20, and 21, T15N R13E, the record states “Land rolling second rate Mostly prairie.” Further south, in what would later be referred to as part of Mackford prairie, between sections 27 and 34, T15N R13E, the land is described as “… level 1^st rate Prairie.” Where line and bearing trees were absent, an earthen mound was prepared: “Set post & erected on mound of earth and rocks.”

Further evidence of a prairie and savanna-dominated landscape is apparent from Richard Dart’s memory of the Green Lake prairie flora described decades later:

I wish I could adequately describe the prairie flowers. Every month during spring and summer they grew in endless variety—such fields of changing beauty, I never saw before. It was a flower-garden everywhere. You could gather a bouquet any time, that couldn’t be equalled [sic] in any greenhouse of New York or Chicago. There were double lady-slippers, shootingstars, field-lilies, etc., etc. Some of them still linger beside the railway tracks. We tried over and over to transplant them, but only the shooting-stars would stand the change. There was also the tea-plant, whose leaves we dried for tea. When in blossom, the oak and clay openings, for miles around, were white with it, like buckwheat. We also had splendid wild honey from the bee-trees (Dart 1910).

Forested habitats were afforded some protection from fire where they occurred in wet floodplains and stream valleys. Prior to the damming of the Puchynan River, Green Lake’s outlet, lake levels were considerably lower. The lake’s main tributary, Silver Creek, was not the wide inundated estuary with floating and submergent vegetation that it is today, but rather a diminutive meander that flowed through marsh, sedge meadow, lowland forest, and swamp. Among trees present in the timbered floodplain as recorded in the field notes were black ash (Fraxinus nigra), white ash (probably green ash, F. pennsylvanica), elm and white elm (Ulmus rubra and U. americana), cherry (probably Prunus serotina), sugar maple (Acer saccharum), aspen (Populus tremuloides), various willows (Salix spp.), and red-osier dogwood (Cornus sericea).

In 1844 Anson Dart, his son Richard, and Smith Fowler constructed the original Mill Pond dam to power a lumber mill, then later a gristmill (Heiple and Heiple 1976). The dam significantly modified Green Lake’s littoral zone and adjacent wetlands by raising the lake level and flooding Silver Creek east off County Road A and opposite of Sunset County Park, SW ¼ Section 26, T16N R13E (43.8277, –88.9274).

Another early resident in the area, S. D. Mitchell, reported lowland forest occupying the east end of Green Lake when Silver Creek was a diminutive flowage.

It might be well to state here that the intire [sic] shoar [sic] line of the lake was changed by the building of a dam across the out let [outlet] called the Puchyann [Puchyan] River at Dartford in the year 1844. This dam Raised the level of the lake some Four feet or more flooding a large tract of very heavy timber…some years since parties removed the over flowed stumps in the shallow watter [sic] between this [Silver Creek inlet, SW ¼ section 26; 43.82511, -88.92336] and the Lake. (State Historical Society of Wisconsin 1888).

Mitchell’s reference to sugar maple emphasized the dependence of Native Americans and early settlers on a nearby tract of maple-basswood forest in and around Mitchell Glen (43.8159, –88.9154), a present-day conservancy property. Approximately one mile northwest of Mitchell Glen, another conservancy land, Sugar Island (43.8274, –88.9238), served as a peninsular campsite along Silver Creek by the Ho-Chunk. Mitchell wrote:

[A] small island [SW ¼ section 26 T16N R13E] known as sugar creek island this is surrounded on the north and west by silver creek and on the south and east by swamps this island formerly was covered with heavy maple timber here again was shown the hacking gouging present of the Indians mode of taping [sic] the maple with his rude implements… (State Historical Society of Wisconsin 1888).

In the survey field notes for the area north between sections 26 and 27, T16N R13E, along what is today referred to as “Inlet Road” (County Road A), “Lynn [basswood] with a 16” diameter is reported. In the same notes is the following passage: “Land first part swamp Last part except marsh rolling second rate thinly timbered with W B & Bur oak.” For the area that is less than a mile northeast, where South Street passes the Sunnyside entrance, the field notes state “Random between Sections 23 & 26”, a “Stream” (Silver Creek) is crossed, then “Enter heavy timbered land.”

Land First part rolling 2^nd rate

Scattering W. B & Bur oak

Last part timbered with W. B & Bur oak

Maple Sugar with thick undergrowth of Briars [Rubus sp.] Hasle [Corylus americana]

West corrected between Sections 23 & 26 Set quarter section post B Ash W Ash

The vegetation cover for most of the immediate area surrounding Mitchell Glen was oak savanna. Upland tallgrass prairie, which transitioned to oak opening, flanked the southern margin, while extensive oak openings occupied the areas southwest and northeast of Mitchell Glen. Historically, recurrent fires greatly influenced the vegetation cover by diminishing woody succession and favoring oak savanna. Although most of the prairies and oak openings were placed into cultivation during the latter half of the 1800s, the dominant vegetation cover for Mitchell Glen remains maple basswood forest (Eddy 1999).

In contrast, based on the field notes for areas near the shores around Green Lake, forested tracts of land were evidently sparse and widely scattered. For example, north between sections 33 and 34 T16N R13E:

36.00 Set post on Green Lake

W. oak 24 S66W 1.48

Bur oak 6N71E .46

Land rolling thinly timbered with W B & Bur oak

Immediately west of Sandstone Bluff, north between sections 33 and 34 T15N R13E, “Land rolling second rate scattering W B & Bur oak.” Continuing west near present-day Emerald Shores, between sections 6 and 7 , white oak and red cedar are recorded, while the area included as part of Tuleta Hill, between sections 6 and 7 T15N R12E, “Land rolling second rate Blk W & Bur Oak.”

Further west, at Tichora Conservancy, between sections 11 and 12, T15N R12E the entry reads: “Fell into line North side of [Spring] Lake Hickory 12.” Then approaching the Green Lake shore: “Larger Lake. A Red Cedar 12 on South Bank.” Continuing west, between sections 14 and 15, T15N R12E, where another conservancy property, Blackbird Point (43.7839, –89.0402) is located: “Set quarter section post in Marsh no trees” and at section corners 10, 11, 14 and 15 bur oaks with 18- and 20-inches diameter were recorded.

At the west end of the lake, what is locally referred to as Green Lake Terrace (43.7798, –89.0621), off Lake Shore Drive, north between sections 9 and 10, T15N R12E: “Land hilly third rate scrubby Blk W & Bur Oak.” The description is suggestive of well-drained sandy soils and recurring fires on the landscape.

Following the lakeshore to Sugarloaf (43.8070, –89.0348), a dolomiticcapped peninsula between sections 1 and 2, T15N R12E the land is “rolling second rate Oak Lynn [basswood] Iron wood [ironwood] Cedars [red cedar].”

Having gone full circle around the lake and ending on the eastern side of the Green Lake Conference Center (43.8372, –89.0088), west between sections 19 and 30, T16N R12E, again oak savanna is recorded: “Land rolling poor Second rate Scattering B W & Bur Oak.”