Obviously, we’re big fans of public lands, as we spend most weekends on a trail or on the water. Since 1994, the fourth Saturday in September has been set aside as National Public Lands Day by the National Environmental Education Foundation (NEEF), in coordination with various federal agencies. Now, NPLD is celebrated all over the country, often as a volunteer service day. The Land Trust of North Alabama had a trail building event in their Monte Sano Preserve, but we were both a little too gimpy for trail work this past weekend. Many public lands offer special programs and guided hikes on NPLD, so I had a look at the Tennessee State Parks website to find a nearby short guided hike. So though we weren’t volunteering, the Volunteer State offered a plethora of choices for guided hikes. I had been wanting to make a visit to the Cedars of Lebanon State Park, just a little east of Nashville, and as a bonus there was also a guided hike at the nearby Sellars Farm State Archaeological Area in Watertown. Jackpot! We could get in a couple of short hikes at places we’ve never visited.
Both events were free, but there was a cost: since they were scheduled events, we had to get up earlier than is our custom (well, Ruth’s custom) on weekends. She agreed to make the sacrifice, so we were rolling a little after 7:30 for the 2.25-hour drive to Sellars Farm. The route is simple enough — I-65 north to I-840 east, over to I-40 east for three exits onto Sparta Pike, then head south for just short of 2 miles before turning left onto Poplar Hill Road. The entrance to the gravel parking lot is marked by a sign a little under .5 mile down the road. We joined two other attendees and our guide, Phil Hodge.
I knew from pre-registering for the event that Phil is an archaeologist. I don’t think he mentioned it in his introduction to the group, but he is in fact the Tennessee State Archaeologist and Director of the Tennessee Division of Archaeology. So yeah, he knows his prehistoric and historic archaeology in general, and he was the best-informed person on the planet when it came to Sellars Farm.
Sellars Farm is one of five State Archaeological Areas in Tennessee, and is administered by the nearby Long Hunter State Park. It’s free and open to the public, seven days a week until sunset. The parking lot can easily hold ten or more vehicles, and the entrance to the site is obvious from the parking lot — it’s a large kiosk with informative displays on the history of the site and its archaeological context. One panel tells the story of “Sandy” — a stone statue of a kneeling man, expertly carved by a Native American artist between 1250 and 1350 CE. Sandy was found on the farm in 1939, and is actually one of a pair of very fine statues, both of which are on display at the McClung Museum at UT-Knoxville. Sandy is also kind of a big deal — he is the Tennessee State Artifact, as declared by law in 2014. Another pair of similar statues was also found at the farm.
Sellars Farm is significant because it is the easternmost of several Cumberland Culture village sites. The village has been dated to between 1000 and 1300 CE, and at least three mounds are visible on the property. The most prominent is the platform mound, a flat-topped mound that rises 15 feet above the fields. Either the ruler’s residence or a religious structure would have topped this mound. Today, the mound is topped by trees and vegetation, and climbing onto the mound is forbidden. The site was first excavated in 1877 by Frederic Ward Putnam for Harvard’s Peabody Museum, and damage from that trench threatens the mound’s stability. There is also a smaller burial mound near the ceremonial mound, in which around 60 stone box graves were found by Putnam. A third small mound is nearly covered in vegetation, northeast of the platform mound. Phil pointed out that its purpose is unknown; in fact, it could be the spoil from Putnam’s 1877 excavation.
Our tour began at the kiosk, and we then followed a wide mown path north along a fenceline. The field to the east was not mown, which meant it was a riot of late summer/early fall asters and other wildflowers. Aromatic snakeroot and slender dayflower were in copious bloom. The trail follows an unpaved road past a pair of portajohns, then passes through a wooded area for a little over 100 yards, with a bend of Spring Creek visible downhill through the trees. The village sat on a bend of Spring Creek, which is a tributary of the Cumberland River. This put it on a trade route, and the creek provided fresh water, fish, mussels, and a defensive position.
Aromatic snakeroot 
Slender dayflower
Along the way, Phil briefed us on the history of the farm, which began as a Revolutionary War land grant until it was purchased by the State of Tennessee in 1974. Farming destroyed most of the surface structures, though Putnam’s excavation and later geosensing tools revealed that the site was relatively small, supporting perhaps 500 people at its peak, with multiple houses inside a double-walled palisade. Excavations revealed that the outer wall was earthern, with a ditch separating it from the inner wall, which was a earthen wall topped by a wall made of tree trunks placed vertically.
We emerged from the woods into a much larger field, with a vast array of various asters, with fall phlox, white crownbeard, and tall ironweed mixed in among the various sunflowers. The platform mound was now in site, and we paused by one of the wooden benches placed throughout the property as Phil told us about the daily life of the Mississippian people and answered our questions. Though this was a thriving civilization for hundreds of years, after around 1400 CE the Native Americans in the area began abandoning their villages. When the first Europeans arrived in central Tennessee in the 1500s, they found empty settlements. Modern research at the site (and elsewhere) revealed signs of social stress prior to abandonment, such as more traumatic injuries and signs of disease and malnutrition found in skeletal remains. Climate research shows that a decades-long megadrought and overfarming could have caused agricultural collapse, leading to more raiding parties and dispersal to find new lands to plant and harvest.
Tall ironweed 
White crownbeard with red-spotted purple butterfly 
Fall phlox
Our walk next took us to the platform mound, and we made our way around it to admire it from all angles. We walked a few yards to the west behind the mound (it faces east, where its one-time plaza is now overgrown) to a nondescript area where Phil pointed out a subtle couple of low ridges that mark the only extant remains of the palisade. We then retraced our steps to follow the mown path past the mound to the east, passing a low grass-covered mound on our way to the banks of Spring Creek. The Creek was low, but it was running, and a couple of caves were visible on the other side. They are on private property, so no trespasssing!
Platform mound 
Plaza 
Palisade remnants 
Mound remnant? 
Spring Creek 
Phil Hodge
Our tour of the site concluded by following the mown path above Spring Creek, passing a historic stacked stone wall along the way before the trail turned south to follow the woodline and return us to the parking area. Phil pointed out that there is one segment of the trail we didn’t cover, which runs along the western side of the property. Total distance of our hike was about 1.25 miles; the western leg would add about another .25 miles. The trails aren’t marked, but they are obvious mown paths. This site is only for hiking; no bikes or horses are allowed. The trails are level, easy walking on a natural surface.
We really enjoyed our tour of Sellars Farm, and especially appreciated Phil’s organized and comprehensive presentation. The two hours flew by! We’ve picked up a few tidbits from our archaeologist daughter and trips to a couple of other mound sites in Alabama, yet we still learned a lot from Phil. For instance, we didn’t know that at least some platform mounds show evidence of having been burned and then built over in a new layer, possibly as a consequence of a change of ruler or religious figure. The platform mound at Sellars was built in three layers, for example. So kudos to the State of Tennessee for having the foresight to purchase and protect this property. Also, we’d like to give a shout out to the folks at the Tennessee Division of Archaeology, who are largely unsung heroes in studying, interpreting, and preserving the state’s historic and prehistoric sites. Your work is appreciated!
Having finished our first NPLD event, we had a little time to get some lunch before making the 15-minute drive over to Cedars of Lebanon State Park. We’re always keen to try local places in general and barbecue places in particular, so we made the short drive up Sparta Pike to Tom’s Blue Moon BBQ. We enjoyed the pulled pork and the flat cornbread (a new thing for us — it’s kind of a hoecake), but I have to say the brisket looked mighty good too. We were too stuffed from lunch to try the Shop Springs Creamery, which you’ll find if you turn south on Sparta Pike from Poplar Hill Road instead of north. It was highly recommended, though, so if you’re in a mood for ice cream instead of barbecue, head in that direction.
Our NPLD event at Cedars of Lebanon was a guided wildflower hike on the Dixon Merritt trail. After a short rest to recover from our barbecue coma, we joined a group of around ten people for a half-mile walk through the cedar glades. Our host was Ranger Sarah, who filled in on short notice when another ranger became unavailable. She gave us a quick background on Dixon Merritt, who was a local humorist and newspaper editor, and also an avid ornithologist. She didn’t mention that he was the author of my dad’s favorite limerick:
A wonderful bird is the pelican, His bill will hold more than his belican, He can take in his beak Enough food for a week But I'm damned if I see how the helican!
but how could she have known?
The Dixon Merritt trail begins behind picnic shelter #1, and heads northeast before forming a lollipop loop. Very quickly after starting on the trail, a cedar glade opened to the right. Sarah stopped to give us the scoop on cedar glades, which are open areas with gravel, rocks, or thin soil, surrounded by cedar thickets and/or small hardwood groves. They are a feature of the karst landscape found in areas of the Cumberland Plateau, in which thin soils overlay limestone deposits, with crevices forming and growing through the erosion caused by slightly acidic rain. The area is riddled with sinkholes and caves (in fact, there are caves in the park).
Cedar glade
The Dixon Merritt trail is pretty much flat, winding through the trees and flanked by fall wildflowers such as blue wood aster, white snakeroot, and white crownbeard (also known as frostweed because of the frost flowers that form around its stem in wintry conditions).
Blue wood aster 
White snakeroot 
White crownbeard
Shortly after splitting to form the loop, the trail arrives at the edge of a creek, continuing along one side on an exposed slab of limestone. It was on the loop that we found our favorite wildflower on this trail, nodding ladies tresses.
Nodding ladies tresses
The trail is a short one, only .5 miles, so when we finished we still had enough barbecue-fueled energy to try one more short trail. Sarah had recommended the Cedar Glade trail, which is another .5 mile trail that begins next to the Visitor Center. While Sarah provided the interpretive information for our first hike, a kiosk at the trailhead and instructional signs along the trail gave us the necessary background to appreciate what we were seeing on our second hike. (By the way, to judge from the two trails we hiked, this park has the most beautiful trail markers in the system.)
The Cedar Glade trail is an excellent introduction to the park, if you don’t happen to have a ranger handy. We learned that the park is known for its extensive stand of red cedars, and is named for a Biblical reference to cedars in Lebanon. This area is home to one of the largest eastern red cedar forests in the U.S. Like many state parks, the genesis of this one was the Great Depression, during which many agricultural wastelands were reclaimed and reforested by the Works Progress Administration. The demonstration forest and park date from 1935. The trail took us past several more cedar glades, with signs pointing out typical plant and animal life to be found in the vicinity. Sarah had told us about the Tennessee coneflower, a rare flower that was the first one from Tennessee to be designated a federally endangered species. It has recovered somewhat, but is still only found in the cedar glades of the three counties in Tennessee. We were delighted to find it in bloom!
We hiked the Cedar Glade trail counterclockwise, and soon found ourselves approaching the Visitor Center from the east. It was a pleasant and easy walk, with little elevation change, with ample paved parking at the trailhead. Though there are restrooms in the Visitor Center, they are closed for now as a COVID precaution, with restrooms available elsewhere in the park.
On this NPLD, we were once again struck by how lucky we are to live in a country where the actions of volunteers, non-profit organizations, and government employees continue to enrich the lives of its citizenry on a daily basis. It was a good time to reflect on the pioneering efforts of those people who recognized the value of preserving land for public use — people like Dr. Elsie Quarterman, who recognized that cedar glades were ecological wonders instead of waste ground. While I can’t call out individual names, how about a round of thanks to those folks who said, “We can take those washed-out farms in Lebanon and apply modern agricultural practices to them to save the cedar forests, and along the way give people a nice place to enjoy them.” How about a tip of the hat to the someone who said, “You know, if we don’t protect these mounds, someone will just plow them under or dig them up, and we’ll lose the chance to learn about our history.” The work continues today, under the oversight of our generation of visionaries. You don’t have to wait for the next NPLD to pay it forward — donations of time, talent, and treasure are always needed.
Woodlands and Waters 