The Woodsman's Journal Online

Sunday, May 31, 2026

Josiah Hunt, How He Made His Secret Camp-Fires, Part Two©

Author’s note -- I hope that you enjoy learning from this resource! To help me to continue to provide valuable free content, please consider showing your appreciation by leaving a donation HERE. Thank you and Happy Trails!

In “Part One” we answered the question of how deep and wide Josiah Hunt dug his ‘coal pit’. This week we are going to answer the remaining two questions:

Why did he use the “roth”, the bark from a dead and dry, white oak tree, specifically?

And, how did he know, in the dark, in the winter, which trees were white oaks?

“... ‘Roth’, meaning thick white oak bark, from a dead tree, ...”

There is no such thing as a truly smokeless fire, only fires which are at best ‘nearly smokeless’, or just less smoky, and here we come to another question. Josiah Hunt describes using the ‘roth’, or bark, of dead white oak trees, Benjamin Kelly told of using hickory bark; this leaves me wondering, does it matter, is one better than the other or are they interchangeable? Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find a definitive answer, one way or the other.

‘Roth’ or ‘Ross’ as it was also known, is the outer, rough, corky, external part of the bark. A dead tree would be dry and have less moisture content than a living tree. The less the water content, the less smoke and steam and the hotter the fire. Also dense hardwoods, such as hickory or members of the oak family burn more slowly and produce a hotter bed of coals, so perhaps their bark does as well.

In fact, the writers of the Luce Creek archaeological field report described Native Americans using hickory nut shells to make a hot, virtually smokeless fire. And Vladimir Fewkes, writing about the Cherokee and Catawba pottery making tradition, recorded that they fired their pots with oak bark, as it produced considerable heat.

Shagbark Hickory or White Oak

But the last question remains, in the dead of night, in the middle of the winter, how did Josiah Hunt know which trees were white oaks?

According to the US Forest Service, Red Oak (Quercus rubra), White Oak (Quercus alba) and Shagbark Hickory (Carya ovata) all share the same native ranges covering almost the entire Eastern United States and southeastern Canada. Also all three broadly overlap across their native ranges, making them frequent companions in deciduous forests. So at night in the winter how do you tell them apart?

Identifying trees in winter relies on their highly distinct bark textures and leaf-retention habits.

The Shagbark Hickory is one of the easiest deciduous trees to identify in winter. Its bark peels away from the trunk in long, loose, thick vertical strips that curl outward at the ends, leaving a highly visible and unmistakable shaggy look against the winter snow. Also shagbark hickories shed their leaves, a practice called ‘abscission’, hickories lose theirs and are completely bare in winter.

The first thing to look for when identifying winter trees is to look to see if there are still leaves on the tree. If there are leaves, then you know it isn’t a shagbark hickory, which loses its leaves. White oak and red oaks are one of the few tree types that often retain their dead leaves through winter (a phenomenon called marcescence).

The leaves of white oaks have lobes that are rounded with no sharp tips. The leaves of red oaks have pointed lobes are pointed and are tipped with tiny, stiff bristles.

Another way to tell a red oak from a white oak is to look at the trunk.

White Oaks have tight, light whitish-gray bark with a scaly, flaky, or ‘shingled’ look. The bark ridges are usually not very deep.

Red oaks have darker bark, brown to dark grayish-brown, that is deeply furrowed. Mature red oaks also often have distinct, smooth, shiny strips running up the center of the furrows, resembling ‘ski tracks’.

So now we have answers to our three questions and know why Josiah Hunt chose ‘roth’ as fuel and how to tell the difference between shagbark hickory, white and red oak trees in winter.

So tune in next week for “Nearly Smokeless Fires, Experimental Archaeology 102”, where we will make a fire and see just how much it smokes.

I hope that you enjoy learning from this resource! To help me to continue to provide valuable free content, please consider showing your appreciation by leaving a donation HERE. Thank you and Happy Trails!

I hope that you continue to enjoy The Woodsman’s Journal Online and look for me on YouTube at BandanaMan Productions for other related videos, HERE. Don’t forget to follow me on both The Woodsman’s Journal Online, HERE, and subscribe to BandanaMan Productions on YouTube. If you have questions, as always, feel free to leave a comment on either site. I announce new articles on Facebook at Eric Reynolds, on Instagram at bandanamanaproductions, and on VK at Eric Reynolds, so watch for me.

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

Notes

Sources

Bigelow, David; History of Prominent Mercantile and Manufacturing Firms in the United States, Vol VI, [David Bigelow, Boston, 1857], page 265-270, https://www.google.com/books/edition/History_of_Prominent_Mercantile_and_Manu/y1w-AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22History+of+Prominent+Mercantile+and+Manufacturing+Firms+in+the+United+States%22+1857+%22josiah+Hunt%22&pg=PA266&printsec=frontcover, accessed May 7, 2026

Howe, Henry; Historical Collections of Ohio, [Derby, Bradley & Company, Cincinnati, 1847], page 199 to 200, https://books.google.com/books?id=ri8WAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA199&lpg=PA199&dq=%22josiah+hunt%22+roth&source=bl&ots=M7iiOgL5Xj&sig=WXic_CR-GpPKHcgxxeXT3oCTcz4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=noyDU8XEDuilsQTX7ICQCw&ved=0CEQQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=%22josiah%20hunt%22%20roth&f=false, accessed May 7, 2026

Mitchell, Charlie; “Phenology Report: Winter tree ID tips help you bark up the right tree”, KAXE or KBXE, [© 2026], https://www.kaxe.org/show/91-7-kaxe-90-5-kbxe-morning-show/2024-12-19/phenology-report-winter-tree-id-tips-help-you-bark-up-the-right-tree, accessed May 30, 2026

Rapacz, Andrea; Connecticut Historical Society Museum and Library, Personal conversation regarding The Phineas Meigs’ Hat, May 01, 2016, 10:51 am

S.J.R.; “Fuel Value of Wood”, Hardwood Record, October 10, 1912 [Chicago], page 32 to 33, https://www.google.com/books/edition/Hardwood_Record/7QQ3AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=does+dry+oak+bark+burn+without+smoke&pg=RA12-PA33&printsec=frontcover, accessed May 16, 2026

Thomas, Laurie and Morris, Darren; “Landowners Guide to Identification and Characteristics: White Oak (Quercus alba)”, FOR-139, University of Kentucky Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, https://forestry.mgcafe.uky.edu/sites/forestry.ca.uky.edu/files/white_oak_factsheet.pdf, accessed May 30, 2026

Thomas, Laurie and Morris, Darren; “Landowners Guide to Identification and Characteristics: Northern Red Oak (Quercus rubra)”, FOR-141, University of Kentucky Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, https://forestry.mgcafe.uky.edu/sites/forestry.ca.uky.edu/files/northern_red_oak_factsheet.pdf, accessed May 30, 2026

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; “N. W. Territory Map, 1801”, by William Barker, [© 2026], https://digital.library.illinois.edu/items/9d2ba5e0-994e-0134-2096-0050569601ca-2, accessed May 9, 2026

Webster, Noah; A Dictionary of the English Language: Compiled for the Use of Common Schools, [George Goodwin & Sons, Hartford, 1817], page 275, https://books.google.com/books?id=fJ8RAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA275&dq=ross+bark+dictionary&hl=en&sa=X&ei=T5kXUu-ZAcTd4QTxtYCQCw&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=ross%20bark%20dictionary&f=false, accessed May 9, 2026

Westmore Arboretum; “Shagbark Hickory, Carya ovata”, https://westmoorarboretum.org/shagbark-hickory/, accessed May 16, 2026

Wikimedia, “An engraving of Simon Kenton, by Richard W. Dodson, after Louis M. Morgan, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts”, ca. 1834-39, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Engraving_of_Simon_Kenton,_by_Richard_W._Dodson,_after_Louis_M._Morgan.jpg, accessed May 16, 2026

Sunday, May 24, 2026

Remember Memorial Day©

Today, Memorial Day is a federally recognized three day weekend, often filled with picnics, outings and furniture/appliance sales.

Originally it conceived as a day to remember the sacrifices of the Union soldiers who had died during the American Civil War, by its founder General John A. Logan, in a proclamation on May 30, 1868. Later the day was expanded to officially honor all American service members who had died in any war.

Officially, it is supposed to be a solemn day of remembrance of those had died in service to our country, and in fact, it was once known as ‘Decoration Day’, the day to decorate and clean the graves of soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen who had fallen. Unofficially it has morphed into a day to remember those who served, and who are no longer with us.

Yesterday, I listened to Jim Verdi, a fill in host on the Vince Coglianese radio show, talk about the sacrifice of those who had fallen in service to our great nation and how the best way to honor them, besides cleaning and decorating their graves, is to remember them by enjoying American things, things like time with family, picnics, time with friends; things that they died to protect. So I hope you have a great weekend, I hope you have fun, but I also hope you remember Memorial Day.

As part of that remembering of Memorial Day, I am remembering one of my ancestors, the first in my family to serve our nation. My sixth-great-Grandfather, 2^nd Lieutenant Daniel Ogden, Jr., who served first as a private in Captain John Winn's Company of Tryon County Rangers, 1776, then in 5th Tryon County Militia, Harpers Regiment, as a Second Lieutenant, 1777.

Don’t forget to come back next week and read “Josiah Hunt, How He Made His Secret Camp-Fires, Part One©”, for more on how to make nearly smokeless, secret campfires.

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

Sunday, May 17, 2026

Josiah Hunt, How He Made His Secret Camp-Fires, Part One©

Before we start with this week’s article, I’ve found some new material, that sheds some new light onto last week’s article, “Josiah Hunt and The Palmer Furnace©”. It challenges my belief that Josiah Hunt was the originator of the ‘secret camp-fire’ technique. While I still haven’t seen any primary or secondary source material specifically stating that Simon Kenton used smoldering bark in a pit to keep from freezing, Ted Franklin Belue, writing “Terror in the Canelands”, DID find evidence of early frontiersmen using bark to make “nearly smokeless” fires. He printed research into Daniel Boone and the salt-boilers taken captive by the Shawnee at the salt-springs at the Licking River, and wrote that Benjamin Kelly, who in 1782 escaped from the Shawnee towns of the Ohio territory with another captive, used hickory bark to create a “nearly smokeless fire”, while making good his escape. This was eleven years prior to Josiah Hunt’s adventures near Fort Greenville and the importance of this is that Simon Kenton was both a hunter and a scout for the salt-boilers who were captured in 1778. Benjamin Kelly and Simon Kenton would have known each other, and if one knew that hickory burned nearly smokeless, so might have the other, or it’s possible that Benjamin Kelly learned this from the Shawnee, during his captivity from 1778 to 1782, since archeological reports for the Luce Creek site in Maryland and the Stony Run site in Pennsylvania described the Native Americans as preferring hickory and trees from the white oak family as fuel wood.

However, the description of how Josiah Hunt made his ‘Secret Camp-fire’, still remains the earliest and best how-to-guide for creating a ‘coal pit’ and a ‘secret camp-fire’, that I’ve found.

But when, I first read about Josiah Hunt, manner of making “secret camp-fires”, it left me with three questions.

One, how deep and wide did he dig his ‘coal pit’; what exactly was the size of a hat crown in 1793?

Two, why did he use the “roth”, the bark from a dead and dry, white oak tree, specifically? Are there other barks that he could have used?

And third, how did he know, in the dark, in the winter, which trees were white oaks?

“he dug a hole in the ground...the size and depth of a hat crown”

Just what was the size and depth of hat crowns in the late 18^th century? Thankfully, Captain Phineas Meigs Hat’s, from 1782 still exists. Captain Phineas Meigs was the last Connecticut man killed in combat during the American Revolution, in 1782. In 1850 his grandson donated the hat he wore when he was shot through the head to Connecticut Historical Society Museum and Library, which still has it today.

According to Andrea Rapacz, at the Museum the width of hat’s 7 ½ to 7 ¾ inches (19.1 to 19.7 cm) in diameter, and the crown of the hat is 4 ¼ inches (10.8 cm) deep. The average human palm for both sexes 3 ¼ inches wide at the knuckles, and the hand is about 7 ¼ inches long from the bottom of the palm to the tip of the longest finger.

So dig your ‘coal pit’ as wide as your hand is long and a bit deeper than half a hand and it will be about “...size and depth of a hat crown”.

Don’t forget to come back next week and read “Josiah Hunt, How He Made His Secret Camp-Fires, Part Two©”, for more on how to make nearly smokeless, secret campfires.

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

Notes

Sources

Rapacz, Andrea; Connecticut Historical Society Museum and Library, Personal conversation regarding The Phineas Meigs’ Hat, May 01, 2016, 10:51 am

Westmore Arboretum; “Shagbark Hickory, Carya ovata”, https://westmoorarboretum.org/shagbark-hickory/, accessed May 16, 2026

Sunday, May 10, 2026

Dr. Jonathan Palmer, a modern caver, is credited with publicizing the use of the “Palmer Furnace” as it is known today by us modern folk. He used a candle or a carbide lamp to exhaust warm gases, up under a shirt or a blanket, to quickly warm up, when cold, an idea he probably got from old-time hard rock miners.

But the idea behind the Palmer Furnace was known at least as far back as the late 18^th century, it dates to 1793 to be exact. Some authors attribute the idea of using a small smoldering fire, built in a pit, and partly smothered with dirt, while sitting above it, wrapped in a blanket to Lewis Wetzel; others such as Allen Eckert, the author of The Frontiersman, attributed the early use of a Palmer Furnace to Simon Kenton. Both Lewis Wetzel and Simon Kenton were active during the 1790’s in the Upper Ohio Valley area and while I don’t doubt Mr. Eckert; I believe the originator of the “secret camp-fire” technique was actually a little known frontiersman named Josiah Hunt.

The earliest known primary biographical source that I can find, that speaks of the “secret camp-fire”, dates to 1847, and was written by Judge Thomas Coke Wright. Judge Wright was the earliest Greene County historian and was also a contemporary of many of early settlers in Greene County and who had spoken with Josiah Hunt, whom he described as speaking with “...a tone of candor and sincerity, as well as modesty, in his manner of relating the thrilling scenes in which he had been an actor...”¹. In this account, written Judge Wright, and sent by him to Henry Howe, for inclusion in his Historical Collections of Ohio, 1847, the creation of “secret camp-fire” is attributed to Josiah Hunt.

During The Northwest Indian War of 1785 to 1795, which ended with the Battle of Fallen Timbers and the Treaty of Greenville, signed in 1795, according to an account written by Judge Wright, Josiah Hunt in 1793 worked both as a soldier and a hunter supplying meat to the garrison at Fort Greene-ville, as it was then known.

Because the Native Americans of the Confederated Tribes would ambush anyone leaving the fort, Hunt would leave the Fort after dark, walk towards his chosen hunting ground and then bivouac for night, before hunting in the morning. During the winter of 1793, he used the following technique to keep from freezing to death in the night, a technique that is like what we know of today as a ‘Palmer Furnace’.

The narrative goes on to say that the Native American warriors who knew of this daring hunter, and who were actively hunting him, were so impressed with the ingenuity of his secret campfire, a trick that, apparently, they did not know about, and his skill as a warrior and hunter that they promoted him to “Captain”, a term of great respect among Native Americans warriors of the time. The fact that the Native American warriors were impressed with how he made his secret campfires, also leads me to believe that he was the inventor of this method.

Don’t forget to come back next week and read “Josiah Hunt, How He Made His Secret Camp-Fires”, where we will talk about how to make an emergency furnace to keep from freezing to death.

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

Sources

Rapacz, Andrea; Personal conversation regarding The Phineas Meigs’ Hat, May 01, 2016, 10:51 am

About Me

I live near Buffalo, New York and have more than 25 years of experience in the outdoors. I enjoy being in the wilderness, paddling a canoe or exploring the woods, when I am not researching survival, woodcraft, camping skills or life on the Old Northwest Frontier of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. I am a published author and I have been a guide for Birchbark Expeditions and an Outdoor Skills trainer for the Boy Scouts since 2014. I am also a martial artist, having studied several different combat arts over the past 30 years. Currently, I am the author of The Woodsman’s Journal Online and BandanaMan Productions on YouTube.

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Sunday, May 31, 2026

Josiah Hunt, How He Made His Secret Camp-Fires, Part Two©

Sunday, May 24, 2026

Remember Memorial Day©

Sunday, May 17, 2026

Josiah Hunt, How He Made His Secret Camp-Fires, Part One©

Sunday, May 10, 2026

Josiah Hunt and The Palmer Furnace©

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