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The Tree That Owns Itself (and its son)

The oak that 'owns itself' in Georgia isn't the original. It's the original's son.

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The real story

The legend was first printed in an Athens newspaper in 1890. It says Colonel William H. Jackson loved a great white oak so much that he deeded it ownership of itself and all the land within eight feet of its trunk. No such deed has ever been found, and legal scholars point out that a tree can't hold property. The town decided that didn't matter, and the tree has been treated as its own owner ever since.

The original oak, probably a few centuries old, fell in a windstorm on 9 October 1942. Members of the Junior Ladies Garden Club grew a sapling from its acorns, and on 4 December 1946 they planted it on the exact same spot. People call it the 'Son of the Tree That Owns Itself', and the club still looks after it at the corner of Dearing and Finley Streets.

What the narrator says

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The facts we checked

  • Legend says a man who loved a white oak in Athens, Georgia, deeded the tree ownership of itself and the land around it
  • The original tree fell in 1942; a new oak, grown from one of its acorns, was planted in the same spot in 1946
  • The city still treats it as the 'Tree That Owns Itself'

Sources

We checked every number and date on screen before the video was made.

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