The Mighty Oak of Savannah - Freeman's Rag

Historical Ruminations

Savannah’s and Savannahians contributions to our country are often overlooked by us. Robin Williams, a professor and chair of the Architectural History Department at SCAD, says although Savannah is small it punches out of its weight class. He compared it to a welter weight who can punch and fight in the heavy weight division. The posts in this section will look at some of the ways that this is true.

Here is Michael Freeman's new book on Savannah. It tells a story not often told of the Creeks and the Native American Creeks who lived in Savannah during its founding. You might even say Tomochichi and Mary Musgrove were co-founders of Georgia.

The Mighty Oak of Savannah

7/21/2019

Oak trees are beautiful and powerful. People appreciate them for the massive shade they create and their towering presence. Oak trees have lived a long time and have seen centuries of history. One quick tour of Savannah and you can see we love our oak trees. They in fact play an important part in our tourist economy. Oak trees are awe inspiring. One famous oak tree in Savannah started a movement: the Candler Tree.

Standing south of the corner of Drayton and E. Gaston Streets it is thought to be 300 years old. The land around it was owned by the early renditions of Candler Hospital. This tree has creds in 2001 it was named a Georgia Landmark and Historic Tree. It was recognized in 2004 by the National Register of Historic Trees.

In 2000 the hospital which owned the land for over a hundred years left and Huntingdon II Ltd purchased the land. Before this purchase in the seventies and early eighties the tree was in trouble because of development and its health was in dire condition. It was given a prognosis of no more than twenty years to live. In 1982 the Savannah Tree Foundation was formed to protect the urban forest of Savannah. Their first project and galvanizing moment was the saving of Candler Oak. The first group of the Savannah Tree Foundation were called the ‘Monday Morning Mothers of the Earth,’ named after the day & time by which they liked to meet.

To preserve Candler Oak they received a conservation easement for the Candler Oak. It was the first such easement for a single tree in America. The easement was for 6,804 feet surrounding the oak tree. The oak tree was measured with the dimensions of:

Diameter
65 inches

Circumference
17 feet

Height
54 feet

Average crown spread
110.25 feet

The Savannah Tree Foundation’s website list as their first:
Use of satellite imagery to document tree canopy changes in an urban area Protect a single tree—The Candler Oak—through a conservation easement Introduce the “Project Learning Tree” curriculum into Georgia schools Produce a State of the Trees Report to guide municipal urban forestry policy Develop an urban forest component in a countywide disaster management plan, which later served as a model for the USDA Forest Service. The Foundation helped established the Mother Matilda Beasley Park site which was contaminated and was owned by an investment group, which planned to develop it for commercial purposes. Today Mother Matilda Beasley Park has been landscaped according to a master plan. They were also in preserving the future of Bacon Park Forest which 17 years ago was in danger of being developed into sports fields. Today the Savannah Tree Foundation is one of the leading tree foundations in the nation.

Though the property has had different owners in recent years (the short-lived Savannah Law School purchased the property in 2012. They would use for their logo the Candler Oak), today the property is owned by the Savannah College of Art and Design.

The Candler Oak has seen the likes of Gen. Oglethorpe, Mary Musgrove, the Revolutionary and Civil War, when Cotton was king, Johnny Mercer, Young Flannery O’Connor, and other significant people and events of Savannah. It was the founder of the Savannah Tree Foundation. It is healthy and still standing many years after its death sentence of twenty years thanks to a little help from her friends.

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