Maryland’s official white oak is even more famous than Connecticut’s Charter Oak. The Wye Oak was the largest white oak on record in the United States. More than 400 years old, it towered more than one hundred feet above the ground at Wye Mills, Talbot County, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Its great branches spread one hundred sixty-five feet, and the circumference of the trunk one foot above the ground was fifty feet.
No one could explain the buttressed roots. Some people think it dates to when a country store was located on the site. Horses that were tied to the tree may have bruised the roots when they stamped their feet.
Fame
Maryland’s first State Forester, Fred W. Besley, made the first official measurement of the Wye Oak in 1909. An enlarged print of the now famous tree was hung in the Easton Court House. It quickly gained notoriety as the “largest and finest specimen of white oak in the country.”
Some dead branches were removed from the Wye Oak in 1914, just in time for the November 1919 issue of American Forests magazine, which created a national Hall of Fame for trees. The “Wye Mills Oak” was its first nominee.
In 1940, the American Forestry Association held a nationwide contest to locate “the largest living specimens of American trees...” Again, the Wye Oak was the first tree nominated. It was one of just two nominees to survive until the 21st century.
. In 1930, more dead wood was removed from the Wye Oak, and some of the larger limbs were braced. The State of Maryland purchased the Wye Oak and one acre on which it stands on September 20, 1939. This was the first time any state ever purchased a single tree solely to preserve it.
In 1941, the white oak was adopted as Maryland’s state tree. The Wye Oak was declared the finest white oak in the United States.
A Fallen Giant
On October 6, 1953, a storm tore a large limb off the Wye Oak. Maryland’s Governor had the wood from the limb made into gavels for the Judges of Maryland. More than half a century passed before another storm made its mark.
On June 6, 2002, the village of Wye was struck by a thunderstorm. The Wye Oak had probably weathered hundreds of thunderstorms during the more than 460 years it was estimated to have lived. But not even oaks live forever.
The Wye Oak’s massive core was hollow, weakening the tree. The symbol that was older than Maryland itself was toppled.
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