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These Martin guitars were born out of Superstorm Sandy’s devastation at Jacobsburg

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Superstorm Sandy hit hard seven years ago at Jacobsburg Environmental Education Center in Bushkill Township.

“We had a lot of storm damage,” said Rob Neitz, manager of the Pennsylvania state park. “We lost a lot of our big trees.”

Out of the devastation, the Martin Custom Shop at legendary guitar maker C.F. Martin & Co. has built guitars out of the wood of some of those trees felled by the storm.

Only three were built and, no, you can’t buy one. You can see them, though, at both the Jacobsburg visitors’ center and at the Martin Guitar factory in Upper Nazareth Township. The third is part of the guitar maker’s archives, spokeswoman Kristi Bronico said.

The design, according to Martin, features “book-matched Norway spruce for the top and the internal braces, white oak for the back, sides and head-plate, and ash for the neck. The unique inlays in the red oak fingerboard feature a variety of insects that may be found in the park.”

Martin inlay artist Sean Brandle hand-inlaid into the pick-guard the logo of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, which owns and operates the hilly park surrounding two miles of Bushkill Creek watershed streams.

The storm hit Oct. 29, 2012, spawned when Hurricane Sandy merged with two other weather systems. Beyond eastern Pennsylvania, it devastated the oceanfront coastline and caused catastrophic flooding in New York and cities in New Jersey. It was blamed for at least 182 deaths and $65 billion in damage in the U.S.

At Jacobsburg, Sandy compounded tree damage sustained one year earlier, when an unseasonably heavy snowstorm struck Halloween weekend in 2011, Neitz said. The park remained open as maintenance staff cut up the felled trees.

The idea for creating guitars out of some of the trees brought down by Sandy stemmed from a relationship between the park and the nearby company, whose guitars have been played by legions of stars from John Prine to Jason Isbell, Willie Nelson to Weezer, David Crosby to Chris Cornell, Sturgill Simpson to Amanda Shires, Johnny Cash to Elle King and on and on and on.

“We are right in their backyard,” said Neitz, who doesn’t play guitar himself but has heard Jacobsburg’s guitar strummed.

Neitz said salvaging the fallen trees’ remains demonstrates Martin Guitar’s commitment to sustainability in wood-resource management.

“Martin Guitar considers its commitment to sustainability a core value,” the company says. “At Martin, sustainability extends beyond environmental responsibility to the communities with whom we work to source our materials. Martin’s commitment is both local to Pennsylvania and global to Central America, Congo and India.”

Martin Guitar says its sustainability practices include:

  • "Save the Elephants: Martin Guitar is proud to be a Founding Partner for The Nature Conservancy’s #SaveElephants campaign.
  • "Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Certification: For 19 years, Martin Guitar has maintained Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Chain of Custody Certification first certified by the Rainforest Alliance and currently certified by NEPCon.
  • "B Corporation Certification: In 2018 Martin Guitar received B Corp certification, meeting the highest standards of positive impact on society and the environment.
  • "Wood Alternatives: On hundreds of guitars daily, Martin substitutes FSC certified Richlite (a recycled paper and resin), high pressure laminates, and sustainably harvested birch laminates rather than rosewood, ebony, mahogany and spruce.
  • "Reforestation Efforts: Martin Guitar underwrites reforestation projects of mahogany and rosewood species in Nicaragua, maple in Pennsylvania and koa in Hawaii.
  • "Indian Forest Management Plan: In 2019, Martin financed a Dalbergia (rosewood) field study in India which will support development of a forest management plan.
  • "Congolaise Industrielle des Bois (CIB) Hospital: Martin Guitar has made a three-year financial commitment to the community hospital in the Republic of Congo where we source our FSC certified ebony. The money is earmarked for specific programs and training dedicated for Indigenous people’s health care.
  • "Energy Generation: The saw dust that we generate in manufacturing is compacted into pellets which are burned locally to generate energy.
  • “Strings Recycling: Martin is a supporting sponsor of Playback, a musical instrument strings recycling program managed by TerraCycle, that has collected and recycled millions of strings.”

The guitars aren’t the only reminder of Sandy created out of storm damage. Lehigh University turned some of the trees brought down on its Bethlehem campus into furniture.