JOINT BASE MYER-HENDERSON HALL, Va. - A diverse collection of foliage representing American history is congregated along Arlington National Cemetery's Wilson and Farragut Drives. What continues to grow in multiple sections of the cemetery in the Kearny Monument area is a living history book of botany.
Beginning as saplings close to 25 years ago, ANC's 36 Medal of Honor memorial trees represent famous Americans, historical events and movements. The collection was planted by the American Forest Society and the Medal of Honor Society in the early 1990s.
The descendants of the witness trees are associated with American presidents, famous Civil War battles and the social-changing watersheds like the Civil Rights movement. The memorial trees are located throughout Sections 2, 37, 13, 46, 23 and 24.
"In 1992, there was a planting ceremony; they originally planted all the trees around [Gen. Stephen] Kearny's gravesite," Arlington National Cemetery Horticulture Division Chief Stephen Van Hoven said. "In 1997, those saplings were dug up because we obviously can't have trees that close together. Many were transplanted along [Wilson Drive]."
Staying near the Kearny gravesite in the Arlington House vicinity are tree #1, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Water Oak, and tree #3, the Robert E. Lee sweetgum. The MLK tree was once part of a grove next to Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Selma, Ala. The sweetgum tree originated on the Lee family's Stratford Hall plantation.
"Part of our sweetgum was growing in front of Robert E. Lee's boyhood home," Van Hoven said during a tour of the area. "They [the transplanters] went to that place and they propagated either from cutting or a seed from that tree and grew trees, and we got the little saplings."
Arlington also is home to descendant trees from historical American war battle sites. Separated by just 20 paces in section 37 are the Antietam Sycamore and the Gettysburg American Sycamore. The current Antietam Sycamore's ancestor was at the Maryland battlefield site near Burnside Bridge, where Confederates held off Federal troops for nearly three hours.
Locating the MOH memorial trees is relatively simple. Each tree is marked with a metal identification plaque, which includes its place in American history, memorial tree number and species.
Additionally, the cemetery contains two state champion trees near the USS Maine Mast Memorial. The empress and yellowwood trees in sections 46 and 23 respectively, are the largest specimens of it species in the commonwealth.
"They just happen to be next to each other. Isn't that remarkable," Van Hoven said of the champion trees. "These trees were probably planted around the time the Maine monument was put up, so right around the turn of the [20th] century. They are around 100 years old."
For a location map and guide of the Medal of Honor memorial trees, go to www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/docs/MOH_Memorial_Trees.pdf.
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