Category: Historic Trees

Birds / Colonial Williamsburg Arboretum / Conservation / Evergreen Shrubs / Flowering Shrubs / Garden Design / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Heirloom plants / Historic Trees / Native Trees / Ornamental Shrubs / Resource Protection / Wildlife Gardening

 by Rick Brown

The Bassett Trace Nature Trail 

              Colonial Williamsburg welcomes visitors to the natural beauty of one of the wilder, quieter portions of the historic area.     The Bassett Trace is named after Burwell Bassett, Martha Washington’s nephew and a Virginia legislator and congressman. In 1800, he purchased a white farmhouse near the trailhead.  In 1936, that farmhouse, now known as Bassett Hall, became the favorite home of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and his wife Abby Aldrich Rockefeller.  During the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg, an...

Birds / Carbon Garden / Conservation / Edible Plants / Evergreen trees / Food Forest / Fragrant Plants / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Heirloom plants / Historic Trees / Holiday Plants / Larval Host Plants / Native Trees / Wildlife Gardening

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Eastern Red Cedar: An Uncommonly Useful Tree

  If fragrance is the gate of memory, the spicy aroma of Eastern red cedar takes me back to childhood holidays.  My parents would load us in the car, about a week before Christmas, for a drive out to a friend’s farm where we could walk through the meadows in search of our Christmas tree.  After a lively debate about the trees we found, Dad would pull out an old handsaw and begin cutting the tree.  We would all help...

Colonial Williamsburg Arboretum / Conservation / Heirloom plants / Historic Trees / Native Trees / Trees

 by Rick Brown

  Arthur A. Shurcliff’s Gift to the Future

  A recent old photo that appeared on Facebook triggered a search through the Colonial Williamsburg Archives that led to the discovery of what may be the oldest living tree in this historic city. The photo, shown above, shows a group of workers standing in a very deep hole with the caption “Moving Cedar Tree 1933.” A comparison with that photo and an Eastern redcedar (Juniperus virginiana) standing behind Bassett Hall at the Northern entrance to the Rockefeller Vista, led...