Steve Lane, a lifelong lover of wood and woodland, was roaming a friend's Florence County property near the Lynches River five years ago when he saw it: a pile of giant logs unlike any wood he knew. Sand minder, dredging for the fine stuff, had dislodged them from as deep as 40 feet beneath the mine water's surface--and discarded them, since buried logs, to them were impediments. Chatting with the dredgers, Lane came to a dumbfounding realization: if this wood had been retrieved from so far down ad was in such solid condition...it had to be absolutely unique.

When it's all sorted out and clinically dated, lane's discovery may go down in science as one of the most significant unearthings of all time. He apparently has identified and begun to salvage tree trunks, intact and useable by 21st-Century artisans, from the last Ice Age.

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Southerners like to think they have a claim on history. E pass antiques down from generation to generation and gush about ancestors who peer at s from oval-shaped frames. We would rather restore a home than build a new one, and we consider our heritage second only to our religious beliefs, both of which are inexorably tied together.

Yet all of this “Southern Pride”
pals in comparison to the tangible chunks of history being dredged up from sand quarries located near Lynches River and Little Pee Dee River.

Not too far from Johnsonville, a local sand company was mining their product when they struck something that stopped their equipment cold.  It was a setback the workers hadn’t counted on.  They dug up the offending blockade of logs and piled them up to be destroyed.  Little did they know that they were unearthing taxodium distichum – ancient bald cypress trees buried for eons.

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Two friends who are building guitars out of ancient cypress wood have sold their first one to a collector.

As WPDE told you last week, Jon Trip and Mike Mcneilly of Murrells Inlet are building guitars out of 45,000 year old cypress wood that was found buried in a sand mine near Johnsonville. Jimmy Singleton of Myrtle Beach purchased the first guitar, sold to the public for $10,000. Singleton says he'll put the guitar on display in his home. He says he doesn't even know how to play guitar , but Mcneilly has offered him a lifetime supply of lessons.

We're told Singleton's brother has also purchased one of the guitars.

Photo of Joe Allen with Mike Mcneilly

 Mike McNeilly wanted a $4,500 guitar but his wife suggested strongly against it.

He turned to his friends Jon Tripp, and Murrells Inlet contractor who makes virtually anything you can think of out of wood, to make a guitar for him.

As luck would have it, Trip's son, too, had wanted an expensive guitar. But instead of forking over large sums for one, Trip had found a book taht showed how to make one.

  So when McNeilly's request came in, Trip agreed to help his friend out.

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INDIANTOWN - John Tanner of Indiantown has just the thing for you wives who are looking for something different and special for husbands who enjoy hunting but have acquired most things they need for the hobby.

Tanner creates "turkey calls".  These contractions give two sounds, one of clucking for the your and another when calling a mate in the woods, when they are rubbed together 'just so'.

These attractive boxes he makes from one of two woods, cypress that is declared to be at least 45,000 years old and black walnut that he milled himself, either of which is a story until itself.  "If you study the rings in this wood, you will see 75 years of growth some 45,000 years ago in this very piece," he said.

The cypress was fond by accident near Johnsonville, buried beneath the sand in what is thought to be a riverbed where the trees fell at least 45,00 years ago.  And what a find it was.  Many things are being made from it today, such as seen in the photo above to name just a few.  Tanner's wife, Elaine, using cypress for the bottom and local pine straw for the basket itself, made the basket.  Behind the basket is a lamp, the base of which is carved of the cypress in the shape of a pineapple.

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LAKE CITY - Visitors at the Lake City Junior Woman's Club's 2008 Oyster Roast got a special treat as they were entertained by the first public playing of a guitar made from 45,00 years old cypress wood. The music coming from the guitar sounded as if it was coming from a stringed instrument, but not a guitar, those listening remarked.

"It has a very unique sound because the wood is so soft," Mike McNeilly of Surfside explained before playing the instrument. McNeilly crafted the guitar almost entirely from the 45,000 years old cypress wood that Steve Lane of Lake City found in a sand pit near Johnsonville two years ago.

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Steve Lane of Lake City was visiting some friends at a sand pit near Lynches two years ago when he saw some strange log-like wood that appeared to have been buried for a long time.

Land, a lifelong wood carver, knew there was something different about the wood because it had been buried in a lake some 40 feet in the ground.

The bald cypress' life rings jumped out at Lane with the same intensity that struck a sawmill working in 1848 when he found traces of gold at Sutter's Mill in California.

No gold rush followed for Lane, but the cypress has been determined to be 37,000 to 45,000 hears old after undergoing carbon tests at the University of Georgia.

Additional test were conducted by Dr. David W. Stahle, director of the Tree Ring Laboratory at the University of Arkansas.

Stahle has made a career of studying bald cypress.  He said the cypress is some of the oldest workable wood ever found.  He estimated the most deeply buried logs to be nearly 50,000 years old.  He described it as a "buried forest that is incredibly unique."

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 A symposium was help Friday, February 11, on the ancient cypress recently unearthed in quarries of Carolina Sand Company.

The event was organized by Steve Lane, a woodsmen and crafter of fine woods. It was hosted by Ancient Cypress, LLC and held at Bazen Hall at Kingsburg near Johnsonville.

Ancient Cypress is a South Carolina liability company which has unearthed an ancient cypress forest from private property in the coastal plains of South Carolina. The quarries on the property are located in the Neck, a rural area west of Johnsonville and near Lynches River.

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 Cypress logs uncovered at a sand mind near Johnsonville are so old they could have provided shade for woolly mammoths.

Felled by a natural disaster before people walked these parts, the forest of trees has been radiocarbon-dated at up to 40,000 years ago.

A group of Pee Dee entrepreneurs hope specialty furniture-makers, high-end builders and artists will pay as much as $100 a board foot for the chance to work with the ancient wood

Scientists already are excited about the find, which ranks among the oldest large samplings of wood from the last ice age.

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Ancient Cypress, LLC donates podium presented to SC, Donation to State Museum, Donation to Smithsonian - The Weekly Observer  

Ancient Cypress, LLC wanted to do something very special for the people of the state of South Carolina with this very historic find, and decided to have a podium built for the governor's office. On March 24, 2005 Steve Lane, Michael Lane, L.P. Rogers, John Tanner, and Debra Lane traveled to Columbia and presented to Governor Mark Sanford the beautiful podium and seal crafted from the 45,000 year old cypress wood.

It was designed and crafted by Bill Houston, owner of Huston & Company of Kennebunkport, Maine. An outstanding artisan of wood products, Huston is noted for specializing in high-end boardroom and office furniture as well as home furnishings. He designed the podium to somewhat resemble the trunk of a tree.

Master carver L.P. Rogers of Florence was commissioned to carve a replica of the State Seal, which was attached to the front of the podium.

John Tanner of Hemingway, South Carolina made the presentation of the certificate attesting to the carbon dating which verified the age of the wood. The governor was pleased to accept the gift on behalf of the state of South Carolina.

"A Symposium on the Ancient Buried Bald cypress Forests of South Carolina"  

A symposium was held at the Badger Bazen Plantation in Johnsonville, South Carolina on February 11, 2005. Approximately 200 people attended, including scientists, woodworkers, artisans, landowners, and media to discuss these archaeological finds.

Dr. David Stahle, professor of Geosciences, University of Arkansas spoke of the natural history of Baldcypress and the past climate application of Baldcypress tree ring chronologies.

Other speakers included Dr Michael Harris, associate professor of Marine Science, Coastal Carolina University, Archaeologist Dr. Albert Goodyear from the University of South Carolina, Richard Guyette, research associate professor at the University of Missouri, and Keith Newton of Little Rock,Ark., an artist and wood sculptor.

Ancient Cypress, LLC donates to State Museum 

The South Carolina State Museum was the groups next stop after donating the podium to the State of South Carolina. A section of cypress log 4 feet x 1.5 feet x 4 inches was presented to the State Museum and acccepted by Mr. James L. Knight. "It is because of interested citizens like you that we are able to collect and preserve artifacts and specimens of importance to our state's heritage. This gift is a most welcome addition to our collections," says Knight.

Ancient Cypress, LLC donates Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History 

Ancient Cypress donated a two foot long section of ancient cypress tree to the Smithsonian Institutions Naturalist Center. The tree section was from a deposit of cypress trees that were carbon dated up to 45,000 years old. They will be adding it to the Naturalist Center's collection where it will be made available for the public to use it for individual and school group investigations.

Fine Wood Working Magazine 

Fine Wood Working Magazine hears about Ancient Cypress! "Out of its sand trap. Unearthed from the depths of a sandpit, 40,000-year-old cypress is straight grained and decay resistant." "You may have been excited to pick up some lumber reclaimed from a neighbor's barn, but those boards are young compared with some of the wood surfacing recently." -Matthew Gardner Article edited December 2004 No.173