In 1855 Mrs. Sara T. D. Robinson, wife of Dr. Charles Robinson who was the first governor of Kansas, described in her diary the environs of Lawrence (1899). In part, the areas described by her overlap those described by Parks, and both writers impart similar impressions. Mrs. Robinson's writing was concerned chiefly with the social and political affairs of the territory and the occasional comments on the "scenery" in her voluble accounts must be regarded as impressions rather than purposeful and accurate descriptions, as certain inconsistencies are apparent. Excerpts from several of her more significant descriptive passages are quoted below. [Between Lawrence and Kansas City, April 17, 1855.] "... prairie stretching in all directions, noble forests marking the line of the rivers and creeks, ... tall oaks and walnuts grouped in admirable arrangement ... there were deep ravines ... skirted with graceful trees, while the water in their pebbly beds is limpid and clear." [North of Wakarusa Crossing.] "... stumps in every direction in the woods ..." [At Lawrence, April 18, 1855.] "The town reaches to the river, whose further shore is skirted with a line of beautiful timber, while beyond all rise the Delaware lands, which in the distance have all the appearance of cultivated fields and orchards.... A line of timber between us and Blue Mound marks the course of the Wakarusa, while beyond the eye rests upon a country diversified in surface, sloping hills, finely rolling prairies, and timbered creeks ... to the northwest there is the most delightful mingling together of hill, valley, prairie, woodland, and river ... fine grove about a mile west of town, one of Nature's grand old forests."
[On trip to visit a neighbor four miles away from Lawrence.] "There were high, conical hills, bearing on their tops forest trees, with dense, thick foliage; at the next moment a little shady nook, with a silvery rivulet running over its pebbly bed...."
[On trip west toward Topeka.] "Timber was more abundant, not only marking the line of the creeks, but crowning the summit of many an elevation."
[At Lawrence.] "Lawrence and its surroundings, of river flowing beneath the dim forests two miles deep on the north bank...."
Parks' and Robinson's accounts seem to show that in general bottomlands and stream courses were wooded, and uplands were mainly prairie, but that local deviations from this pattern were numerous, with trees and groves isolated or partly isolated in a variety of situations. This condition suggests that prairies were then encroaching into formerly wooded areas. A climatic shift toward hotter and drier conditions, or a change in native practices, with more frequent burning, might have brought about the trend.
Further information concerning the distribution and composition of the forest is afforded by a series of letters from the settlers at Lawrence, Kansas, that were printed in various Boston newspapers and in the Milwaukee Daily Sentinel, in 1854, 1855, and 1856. In nine such letters which discuss, among other things, the availability of timber, several kinds of trees are listed. Oak (species not mentioned), black walnut, and cottonwood are each listed in seven of the nine letters, while elm, hickory and "white walnut" are each listed in two, and ash, hackberry, sycamore, basswood, willow and locust are each mentioned only once. Copies of these letters are in the files of Dr. James C. Malin, to whom we are much indebted for the privilege of examining them, and for his critical reading of parts of the manuscript.
Early U. S. Government maps of northeastern Kansas show the distribution of forest in the late eighteen fifties, and in general the pattern agrees well with that indicated by the accounts of Parks and Robinson. Through the kindness of Dr. Malin, we have been permitted to examine his photostatic copies of a series of these early maps, covering the area discussed in our study, and made in the period extending from 1855 through 1860. A tracing taken from parts of two of these maps, showing the Kansas River north and east of Lawrence, and the area between the river and the north boundary of Douglas County, is reproduced in [Fig. 1]. For comparison, a map of the same area showing the stream courses and the distribution of timber, as traced from recent U. S. Geological Survey maps, is reproduced in [Fig. 2].
The early maps agree with Parks' and Robinson's descriptions in showing an extensive belt of timber in the flood plain north of the river, and narrower belts of timber along its tributary streams. In [Fig. 1] the courses of the Kansas River and of Mud Creek agree fairly well with those shown on modern maps, but there are gross errors in the minor drainage systems of the sections of land in the northeastern part. Other evidence indicates that the distribution of forest was much different than that shown in this part of the map. Field work by the map-makers in this marginal area must have been extremely sketchy. Dr. Malin explains that such inaccuracies are to be expected because the contracts for mapping were made on a political basis, with little or no regard for other qualifications of the applicant.
The University of Kansas Natural History Reservation is in the northeasternmost section (Section 4, Township 12S, Range 20E) of Douglas County, Kansas. Topographically, it is almost evenly divided into three parts: (1) peninsular extensions of the Kansas River Valley, sloping gradually up to a level approximately 100 feet above that of the flood plain; (2) hilltops 200 feet or more above the level of the flood plain; (3) steep slopes from the hilltops to the valley floor.
The land that is now the Reservation was part of a tract acquired in the eighteen sixties by former governor Charles Robinson, after the Delaware Reserve lands in the northeastern part of Kansas Territory were sold by the tribe. The section of land now comprising the Reservation was used primarily for grazing after Robinson acquired it. However, several squatters settled on the area and cultivated small acreages for periods of years in the eighteen seventies and eighteen eighties. In the eighteen nineties parts of the area including some of the hillsides were still covered with a mixed forest of virgin timber (fide Frank H. Leonhard in conversation, October 19, 1951). Mr. Leonhard, who was long in the employ of the Charles Robinson family, remembered the area as far back as the early eighteen nineties when he worked on it cutting timber. He remembered, especially, cutting large walnut trees as much as two feet in diameter, which were valuable timber, but he thought that elm also was abundant at that time. By then the area, separated into east and west halves by a rock wall, had already been heavily grazed, and the original prairie vegetation, presumably dominated by big bluestem, had been much altered. The open upland portions were dominated by blue grass.