Holy smokes J. Morse, Mr. Burt got around a bit as he was one of the prominent surveyors here in south-central Wisconsin in the 1850's!
He, along with William Canfield did much of the early work in my area. Mr. Canfield took extensive notes of their original surveys as they were required to do under their US Government contracts.
These records are all on file and also recorded digitally at the local courthouse and make for fascinating reading. It was a great pleasure early on in my career to read these notes and re-establish
many of the corners here in Sauk County.
Mike, I am sure you know of Honey Creek here in Sauk County, did you know that William Canfield named it as such because of the bee trees that lined its bank and the excess honey that flowed out of them into the stream? That was even before your time back in 48, (1848 that is) It was incredible what the early surveyors went through, considering there were few roads, even fewer communities and tough to resupply, not to mention hostile natives, disease and so forth. All for a dollar a mile. Think of the poor fellers that got the contract in the northern part of our state that had to meander all the lakes they ran into. Lost Land Lake (you can google it) is a prime example.

ZIm

Typically the Red Oak family is much more susceptible to oak wilt than the white oak family which the Burr oaks belong to. Any idea if these huge trees are dying of old age or a disease such as oak wilt? They are large enough to maybe be 350-500 years old which is the estimated life span of these giants. There are clusters of these along 151 from Fond du Lac to Madison and they survived the many fires for centuries to help maintain the oak savanna in much of south central WI.

Bryce

Just read the book " The Last Buffalo Hunter" by Mary Weekes and it is of a metis called Norbert Welsh from the Red River Settlement statements and for several years later in life he supplied the surveyors of western Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Was a good read. My daughter had to go through some of the notes to find some monuments from those notes of the first surveyors.She could tell what day the supply ox carts came in to camp- because fine pencil writing turned to scribble for a week or two. they were not allowed to take any liquor into the north west area it was called, but medical ointment could be taken out of the Red River settlement.

We have a few Burr Oaks here at work that are pushing 80 inches and have been core dated at 445 years old. Very impressive trees. 50 to 60 feet to the first limb and a total height of about 130 feet. Mikec

Thanks, Bryce.

I have been noticing several Northern white oaks slowly dying from what looks like typical oak wilt symptom. Must be something new.

Oak tree at Webster city , Iowa, izak Walton had a trunk at least 7' thick

Them trees could tell some stories.

There's a giant Chinkapin Oak in my area. It's got a seven-foot trunk, is 73 feet tall and has a 118 foot spread. It's supposed to be more than 500 years old.

the native Indians considered it a sacred tree and it is still referred to as the Sacred Oak. It famous enough that it comes up on a google search.

It's on private property but used to be anybody could visit but goofballs started performing pagan rituals there so the owners closed the property.

Cool!

I don't have the pictures but Dad and his brothers cut a burr oak that was ~9' diameter when I was still new. Uncle had photos of it.

Ttt.

Tell him to find those pics! I'd love to see a tree like that

Burr oak can really tell some stories.....especially the way people of the past treated them .....with no respect.
How many fence lines were tacked to those 4 inch trees....

Any 6 inch oak was spared when they cut fence post.....they were waiting till they got to 12 inches for firewood.

Black bears swim across Lake Winnipegosis some 12 miles to the mass Burr oak drop in September, the researcher thought the bear was shot and gone over to a fishing camp in a boat; till he tracked it down to his surprise and there was 10 others dining out on the ridges.