Where can you find the oldest structure in McHenry County? It depends on how you define the term. Bull Valley, Crystal Lake, and Marengo all have houses dating back to the 1840s, and Woodstock’s Old Courthouse is nearly the same age. But about halfway between Woodstock and McHenry on Route 120, a work of living nature exists that has all of them beat. The Wolf Oak, part of Wolf Oak Woods at 8930 IL-120, is a still-living witness to a time almost a hundred years before America’s declaration of independence in 1776. This Friday, September 21st, the Land Conservancy of McHenry County will host its first public event at the site of the county’s oldest tree, marking the autumn equinox with “Howl at the Wolf Oak.”
Lisa Haderlein, the land conservancy’s director, explained that part of the name came from an old farming term. When a tree had grown so old that the branches drooped to cover the ground, she said, “farmers would refer to trees like that as ‘wolf trees’… you couldn’t farm under it, you couldn’t keep livestock under it, so as they saw it, a tree like that on the farm was as useless as a wolf.” Accordingly, most of these old-growth trees were chopped down over the years, especially as farms changed hands to new owners eager to make a profit.
But with Wolf Oak Woods, the conservancy had a run of good luck. “The Clark family had owned this farm since the 1860s,” Haderlein said. “To them, this tree and the oak woods were part of the farm. They kept the oak woods and the wetlands alongside the farm, and they’d have a place to collect firewood, a place for the kids to play… it was a diversified landscape. So the oak woods were maintained by this family for over a century, and when they got to the point where nobody was around to take over the farm, they came to us to ask if we wanted to buy it.”
It was a tall order for the conservancy, a non-profit organization which only rarely purchases land, and then only with grant money. With high real estate prices in McHenry County and no grants available for the property, Haderlein led an effort to raise $400,000 to preserve the county’s oldest living natural landmark. It was an instant success – the Land Conservancy purchased Wolf Oak Woods in January of 2017, and is on track to finishing the fundraiser and paying off the mortgage in 2019.
After eighteen months of volunteer work to restore the land and clear out invasive species, the conservancy decided to take its member-invite “Howl at the Wolf Oak” event held for last November’s full moon, and open it to the public. This year, the event marks the autumn equinox, the point where the turn of Earth around the sun causes the Northern Hemishphere’s fall and winter to set in as nights become longer than days. Haderlein invites Woodstock-area residents and families for “nature hikes, chili, smores around the bonfire, there will be activities for kids… we’ll have a setup to attract moths, there are a huge number of moth species you can find in oak woods because so many moth and butterfly caterpillars rely on oak trees.”
And, as the name suggests, Haderlein invites guests to take part in a group “howl” near the end of the event. It’s an homage, she says, to the other part of the wood’s name. “This tree was here and was already a big tree when there were wolves here, when there were buffalo here, in McHenry County,” Haderlein said. “The Wolf Oak has a story, it’s a story of generations and of time passed. These veteran trees are still here, and if they could talk, just what could they tell us?”
Howl at the Wolf Oak will be held the day before the official fall equinox, on Friday the 21st from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm. For more information, visit conservemc.org.
Willcockson Wordsmithing 