Welcome to the 21st episode of Explained: where I’ll be telling you that trees are
great. They’re tall, green, make oxygen and just generally look nice. But there are
things trees cannot do though – they can’t write a concerto or use tools or own property
or... wait, what’s that? What?!? Oh c’mon, that’s just silly...
[intro] Sitting on a street corner in the suburbs
of the third-best Athens in the world in the second-best Georgia in the first-best United
States (fine, I’ll give you that one) sits a white oak tree that may or may not own itself,
and we’re not talking about foliage laying down savage comebacks on itself but instead
legally having ownership of itself and the land it sits on – which is a very strange
concept indeed. I mean apes can’t even own photographs they take, so how the hell did
a tree, which can’t even communicate or walk come to own itself? Well, as is seemingly
tradition at this point, we have to go back to Victorian times. Well, at least it isn’t
another island or a ship that ends up sinking at the end. Yay, I guess.
The local tale starts with a man named William Henry Jackson, who might be a Colonel or Doctor
or both or neither depending on who you ask. According to the story, which has travelled
down the generations, William spent his childhood under the oak tree and as a result picked
up many fond memories of said tree. So, in 1823, William Jackson came up with a measure
to stop any negative alteration to the tree, and deeded the following:
‘Witnesseth, That the said W. H. Jackson for and in consideration of the great affection
which he bears said tree, and his great desire to see it protected has conveyed, and by these
presents do convey unto the said oak tree entire possession of itself and of all land
within eight feet of it on all sides.’ So, yeah – nobody could tamper or cut down
the tree now, as they didn’t own it. The tree was protected, or was it? Things aren’t
that simple – can a tree legally own property? According to local Georgian common law, the
group being given property or objects have to have the ability to accept said objects
or property, so, to cut a long story short... No, a tree can’t own itself, stupid. It’s
a tree. Except, everyone went with it. And have gone
with it for over a century, nearly two and counting so, yeah. You could argue that from
a de facto point of view, the tree does because everyone has acted like it does, instead of
a de jure point of view where it must be written in law. But, I don’t know for sure, I’m
not exactly willing to spend years in a law school studying state law for a very specific
part of a country 4000 miles away that I’ve never been to. But I digress...
Okay, so we’ve got that sorted how the tree came to own itself but NOPE because maybe
not? The first reported story of the whole ‘deeded-to-itself’ was in 1890, and that’s
the whole reason why we know the wording of the deed or the history of the tree, which
supposedly happened 67 years earlier, which isn’t the most primary of sources. But it
gets stranger. The author of the article was anonymous and claimed to have seen the original
deed, which doesn’t exist anymore and no solid evidence of which exists. And to add
to this, it’s unsure if William H. Jackson actually spent his childhood in Athens, which
is yet to be confirmed, though he definitely did own the land and therefore the tree at
one point. Hhmm. Not the most solid story. But hey, de facto argument can be used again
and also it seems more unlikely for someone to engineer such a weird scheme for seemingly
no benefit than someone trying to protect childhood memories. Occam’s Razor, at it
again! Oh, uh, Occam’s Razor is a philosophical
device used to try and find the truth from several scenarios, and it posits the one that
requires the fewest assumptions is probably true, it’s very useful.
By this point, the history of the white oak that may or may not own itself is hazy and
a bit messy, but hey, it probably can’t get any more complicated, can it? Can it?
*pause* Hehe... you can’t tell I am smiling at the moment, but I am because yes it can
get more complicated. Yes. It. Can. This...is not the tree that was deeded to
itself, or even reported to be deeded to itself. You see, by 1910 wood rot and erosion of soil
was evidently hurting the tree pretty badly, not helped by the fact it was probably already
300 years old at that point, and in a storm in late 1942, sadly, the tree fell.
But, not wanting to get rid of what by that point had become a cherished local landmark,
a new sapling was grown from an acorn from the original tree, the son of the tree that
owns itself, or the daughter or, hold on... [google]
Eeeh, son, whatever. It was dedicated by the mayor of Athens (not that Athens) which only
strengthened the de facto argument, and today, the son of the tree that owns itself sits
on a street corner, with plaques and markers surrounding the land boundary it supposedly
owns. It’s become a regional landmark and nobody has challenged the ownership of the
circle of land 16 feet in diameter. Provided you believe a tree can own property, and the
deed actually existed, and a tree can inherit without a will, it’s doing pretty good for
a tree. Or two.
[Various Announcements]
Thank you very much for watching, see you next time.