The Pecan Tree

The Pecan Tree:

If you come to the Natchez Trace State Park in Tennessee, you will find a document that reads precisely as this webpage:

Perhaps the most unique feature of the Natchez Trace State Park is that it is the home of the third largest pecan tree in the world. In the 1930's the following plaque was erected at the Pecan Tree by the John McCall Chapter of the D.A.R. "Accepted tradition says that this tree had grown from a pecan given to Sukey Morris by one of Jackson's men as they traveled homeward after the Battle of New Orleans." It is difficult to say whether this legend is true or not. It is known that four companies of General John Coffee's Tennessee Militia used the western branch of the Natchez Trace which passes by the Pecan Tree to return home from the Battle of New Orleans in April of 1815.

I am the sort of man who will travel a long way out of his way to see such a tree. If you do the same, on the road to Shiloh, you will find deep in the heart of the state forest a place set aside for the tree. It has split-rail fences, and a pillar set for a plaque to describe the tree's history.

The pillar is now blank. The plaque is gone. There is a giant stump where once the pecan tree stood.

Chesterton:

All things achieved and chosen pass,
As the White Horse fades in the grass
No work of Christian men.