Settlement-Era Tree Composition, Eastern US: Level 1

Witness tree counts within town/township polygons were tallied from early land survey records of town outlines and lotting subdivisions. Overall dates ranged from 1623 to 1870, but varied by town and were recorded about the time of first settlement of the town. A myriad of archived sources were tapped from town, state and national repositories, historical societies and private collections. The SetTreeComp_Northeast_Level1_v1.0 database includes records throughout the domain collated by Charles Cogbill, and include contributions from southern New England by John Burk, from the Catskills, New York by Robert McIntosh, and from the Finger Lakes, New York by Peter Marks. Every effort was used to avoid duplication of trees. The taxa classes were generally genera or unambiguous categories based on the vernacular names used by the surveyors. In several cases (black gum/sweet gum, ironwood, poplar/tulip poplar, cedar/juniper), because of ambiguity in the common tree names used by surveyors, a group represents trees from different families and even orders. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grants #DEB-1241874, 1241868, 1241870, 1241851, 1241891, 1241846, 1241856, 1241930.