Rebirth
Our neighbor across the street and above our house is a nature preserve owned by Old Hemlock Foundation.
It consists of approximately 150 acres of forest plus another 80 acres or so of land that was, until three years ago, covered with a dense stand of red pine trees way past maturity. A powerful surge of wind had ripped a multitude of dead limbs from these trees and toppled others, leaving a tangled forest of little value but at high risk for fire. The stand was on both the east and west sides of the highway, adding to its susceptibility to fire and setting the stage for inconvenience, injury and death. High winds frequently toppled an aged tree or two, closing the highway and/or taking out a utility line.
I am always disheartened by logging, especially on the large scale that was necessary in this case. Most hardwood trees were sparred, but the harvest nevertheless left the land scarred from the footprints of backhoes and large trucks. I recall hiking the grim aftermath and sinking into ruts and mudholes halfway up to my knees in the spring of 2022. Signs of life remained in the thousands of pinecones that littered the ground, and I thought of bringing some home and attempting to start some seedlings. But they were not the kinds of pines I would want in my yard.
Not to be confused with the iconic and much more economically significant red spruce of high elevations, red pine were planted extensively on land disturbed by strip mining in the first half of the century. Another large stand of this species is across Interstate 68 on the King Christmas Tree farm, where they tower over the gorgeous spruce and fir trees owner Bill King grows and manicures there. With the red pine’s main economic value being for fence posts and mulch, harvesting them is often only a break-even venture.
The Old Hemlock planting was a legacy of its founders and owners, George Bird Evans and his wife, Kathryn Harris Evans, who purchased the former Preston County farm property at a foreclosure sale in 1939. It included a log cabin that was built circa 1815 and became the couple’s home on this estate/repose where George could pursue his writing, bird hunting and breeding of a line of English Settlers that bears the “Old Hemlock” distinction.
George (1906-1998) grew up in nearby Uniontown, Pennsylvania, and attended the Carnegie Institute of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago. He found work and success as an illustrator in New York City, where his clients included the McCall’s and Cosmopolitan magazines.In 1938 he received an exclusive contract to illustrate detective and mystery stories for the latter publication.
His success early in life rewarded him with the finances to purchase the Old Hemlock property and semi-retire in this primitive but inspiring environment of woodlands and farmland. He continued to work for his New York clients, transmitting his work via the U.S. Postal Service in that pre-digital era. World War II interrupted his West Virginia-based work as George enlisted in the U.S. Navy. His assignment was illustrating naval and aeronautical equipment repair manuals that used pictorial language to show how the complex equipment went together.
The commercial magazine illustration market changed after the war—photography was preferred to illustration, content was shifting from fiction to nonfiction. Having illustrated many mysteries, George and Kathryn decided they could write at least as well as the authors for whose works they illustrated. In their Allegheny Mountains lair, the couple launched a new, freelance career as authors.
They published their works under the pseudonyms “Brand Bird” and “Harris Evans.” By their fifth novel, the Old Hemlock Mysteries had brought modest fame and fortune while paving the way for even greater literary success in the genre of gun-sport literature.
George was fiercely dedicated to the English setter breed and purchased his first bird dog from George H. Ryman of Shohola Falls of Pennsylvania. “Blue,” so named for being a blue belton, had a white coat with blue/black flecks and patches.
Blue proved himself in the field and was bred him with another exceptional setter, Dawn, an orange belton female found at a kennel near Pittsburgh in 1942. The nine pups born of this combination became the progeny of the Old Hemlock line of English Setters.
George, with Kay as his editor, wrote dozens of articles that established him as a preeminent voice in upland game bird shooting during the latter half of the 20th century. His first of 19 books about upland hunting, The Upland Shooting Life, was published in 1971 as “a manifesto, an autobiography, a manual, and a wildlife romance all rolled into one,” according to John Cuthbert, curator of the West Virginia and Regional History Collection at West Virginia University. The publications, manuscripts, illustrations, audio visuals and personal papers of George and Kay are held in that collection, housed in nearby Morgantown. Perhaps its most significant entry is George’s shooting journal in which he documented some 65 years of life in the field.
“Without question, George Bird Evans is one of the greatest icons of ruffed grouse literature,” wrote A.J. DeRosa, creative director of Project Upland magazine. “His work remains influential today, continuing to be republished in magazines and adapted into audiobooks.”
Old Hemlock, a nonprofit organization, is governed by a three-director board that was appointed by George and Kay in their wills. They are dedicated to protecting their home and the Old Hemlock property and manage the foundation’s assets. One of the directors and his wife, LeJay and Helen Ann Graffious, live on the property. They have two Old Hemlock setters, Black Willow and Mountain Laurel.
LeJay and Helen Ann are our neighbors. On our first full day here, LeJay showed up at our door with a lovely baked item that was much appreciated amid that 250-mile relocation and hundreds of boxes and bags. Both they and the foundation are good neighbors, who grant us full access to the woodlands, a tremendous blessing.
I never met George or Kay, but when I walk the five miles of trails at Old Hemlock with my shelter dog mutt, Edison, I feel inspired as a writer and filmmaker in much the same way that these forests enchanted and moved these famous fore-walkers. Frankly, I don’t walk them enough, particularly in the summer, due to a robust tick population and the dense undergrowth of invasive species—Japanese silt grass, bush honeysuckles, and several kinds of thorny vines that strangle the young hardwoods. This scenario is unfortunately repeating itself on the west parcel where the red pine trees once stood. However, on the east side above our home, the scarred land was seeded with a native pollinator mix to ward off the Japanese silt grass and other invasives.
This September marks the third year that the field has burst into an arresting profusion of yellow as the tickseed blooms. As LeJay Graffious recently wrote in a Facebook post, “Native bees are working the blooms, butterflies drift through like old spirits, and soon these flowers will turn to seed—composite heads full of promise. The goldfinches and sparrows know what’s coming. They’ll be here soon, riding the wind and feeding on the legacy of a well-planned restoration.
“It’s a good sight. A field reclaimed. A story written in petals and wings,” LeJay concluded.
For the last three years, I’ve documented this transformation, which is depicted in the video. The logging scenes are from the west side of the road, while the tickseed (Coreopsis) video are from the east side. The field is visible from Brandonville Pike. As of September 21, the bloom is still vibrant, thanks to the overnight thunderstorms that refreshed this “good sight.”
For more information on Old Hemlock Foundation and its many projects, visit their website and follow them on Facebook. Tours of the property, including the log home in which George and Kay lived and wrote, are periodically offered and announced on the Facebook page.
