The tree that owns itself in Athens, Ga. Provided.
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
FEB. 28, 2025 | An old story out of Athens, Ga., that is familiar to some Georgians got the attention of a guy in Brooklyn, N.Y.. recently. We learned this from our friend, George Graf of Palmyra, Va., who has written some travel stories for the TravelGumbo web site. Among the owners of the site is Paul Heymont of Brooklyn.
Heymont
Heymont was fascinated about the story of a tree in Athens that owns itself. Many of today’s Gwinnett residents may not know of this story.
Below is what Heymont wrote in TravelGumbo on February 22.
“This is a story that is almost certainly not true, though I wish it were.
“In Athens, Georgia, there is a tree that legend says is its own owner, given to itself about 200 years ago as a mark of the donor’s affection for the tree whose shade he had long enjoyed.
“According to the story, and on a stone at the tree’s foot, Col. William H. Jackson granted a deed:
“The story first appeared in a local newspaper in 1890, saying that the deed dated to 1832. The story appears to have been known to a number of old-timers, who gave dates from 1820 to 1832….At the time, the land was countryside, not yet with city streets.
“Over the years, age and erosion took a toll on the tree, estimated to be somewhere “between 150 and 400 years. Its base was shored up several times, but by the early 1900s it was clearly declining; when it fell in a storm in 1942 it may have already been dead for several years, although it appears healthy enough in a 1930s postcard view.
“After the tree fell, members of a local garden club who had cultivated new trees from acorns of the original tree, arranged to have one of them stand in for its parent, as the inheritor to the title. That’s the tree that’s there now. Legally, it’s said, the deed would never have been valid because both parties to such a transfer have to have the legal capacity to act, which a tree doesn’t”But that doesn’t seem to bother the local government or the Athens’ Junior Ladies Garden Club, which serves as its ‘primary advocate.’ The city’s view? “However defective this title may be in law, the public recognized it. In that spirit, it is the stated position of the Athens-Clarke County Unified Government that the tree, in spite of the law, does indeed own itself. It is the policy of the city of Athens to maintain it as a public street tree.”
Well, Mr. Heymont, you bet the story is true. And yes, we’ve visited that site, on a hill east of downtown Athens, and we’ve seen the tree.
Mark Smith, now of Eatonton, who lived in Athens for years, doubly confirmed it: “The story is true and the tree was still standing several years ago, just off Broad Street, near the University of Georgia campus.”
Paul Heymouth has himself visited the tree, and it also turns out that he was born in Georgia.
“I was born at Ft. Benning in 1944; my father went overseas, and my mother took me back to New York, which is my real home, although I didn’t really settle here until college. I’m successively retired from graphic arts, from teaching and school administration, and keep myself much too busy both traveling and working on TravelGumbo.”
Paul, we’re glad you learned something new about your native Georgia, and was able to spread the word about that tree that owns itself.
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