MEET THE GIANT WATER OAK WE CALL THE GENERAL

It's trunk is about 4 foot in diameter and it is over 100 feet tall

HISTORY

On a cool autumn day some 200 years ago a squirrel buried a tiny acorn on this spot. It sprouted the next spring and I started to grow. Year after year as I grew looking down over Little Noonday Valley, I saw Indian children as they laughed and played in the creek below.  That was a long time ago when this land was part of the Cherokee Indian nations home-land.

As time passed the forest around here was cleared to make way for a large plantation. African slaves were brought in from lands far away and used as free labor to grow cotton and tobacco.

In 1839 I watched federal troops as they rounded up the Cherokee Indians, young and old. Upward to 4000 old men and women, pregnant women and children, scantily clothed, sick and starved were forced to walk over 700 miles bare footed in the dead of winter to a reservation in the Oklahoma Territory.  How sad it was that winter as they trudging along dying one by one along the dreaded Trail of Tears!  That was a long time ago but not forgotten!

As time passed I saw many happy and some sad stories play out in Little Noonday Valley below. During the civil war 1860-1865 I saw young men from both sides die needlessly in skirmishers.  As a result President Abraham Lincoln by proclamation finally freed the plantations salves.

From 1865 onward former slaves men, women and children were used as cheap labor under a share cropper agreement with land owners. The tenants got a meager, fraction of the income they generated as tenant, farm hands. The land owners got  virtually free labor by providing tenants scant housing a garden space, a pig pen and little more!

As time passed the plantation was split up and deeded to family members or sold as parcels known as farms. Most farmers continued to use share croppers as farm hands for cheap labor up into the 1960s.  As the share croppers left the farm it fell in decay. The farm was split up into small parcels and sold as sub-divisions where new homes were built. The house built next to me is still here.

Since the 1960s I have had the wonderful opportunity to become friends with the children who grew up in the house here beside me.  They happily climbed my branches, chipped my bark and played on rope swings they built.

In 1985 a new family moved in and over the years 10 beautiful children grew up here. They played on my branches and laughed under the cover of my shade. One by one they grew up and left on their road to life.  How good it is to see them return and look gleefully at me as they smile and remember their long hot Georgia summers and the happy times of youth. Over the past 200 years I have sheltered more people under my branches than I can count.  I look forward to many more happy years!

Things have changed around here over the years.  Down below Little Noonday Valley has become a beautiful flower garden with a banana grove.

I want to thank that squirrel for not eating the acorn!

Thank You for your interest

The General

Story by Larry The Banana Man