The Witness Tree Challenge

 

Venerable tree on Maidens Road (Goochland County Historical Society image.)

Goochland is blessed with a gracious plenty of trees. In summer, we enjoy their shade, during ice storms we fear their ability to snap power lines and close roads. In autumn, we rake leaves. They form a backdrop to our lives.

Some trees are crops with relatively short lives. Others have been around for generations and bear silent witness to history.

As we approach the 250^th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, the Goochland Historical Society is partnering with the Goochland 250 Commission, the Goochland Rotary Club, Goochland Schools, and the Goochland Education Foundation in the “Witness tree challenge” to locate and identify trees that have been in the county since, or even before, our nation was founded.

Over the nearly three centuries since its founding and before, trees in Goochland were cut down to clear land for crops, used as firewood, milled to provide lumber to build, and as continues today, grown for industrial use.

There are some trees in Goochland, however, that have stood observing events unfolding around them. The goal of the Witness Tree Challenge is to find and celebrate those venerable trees. As trees add a ring of bark during each growing season, their age can be determined by counting those rings. A forester will drill a small hole in the tree to extract a horizontal core to confirm its age.

All school children, including those in public, private, or home school venues, in the county are encouraged to participate in the following manner:

·         Find a candidate tree. Do not trespass. Obtain permission from landowners. To find out who owns a particular parcel of land go to the wonderfully updated Goochland County GIS site at https://gis.co.goochland.va.us/CivQuest/. (This can be a good way to teach children how to read maps.)

·         Measure the circumference of the tree using a tape measure or piece of twine.

·         Identify the type of tree e.g. oak, sycamore. There are many apps to help with this.

·         Record the location of the tree with street address and with the compass app on a smartphone for precise longitude and latitude.

·         Take a photo of the tree.

·         Submit this information to nominate a tree at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfDPPJ-8317zc0f9zO5fuiv2EqvO06-5PamyopQjFuXtHDeWQ/viewform

Submissions must be made by March 1, 2026.

The Witness Tree Committee will evaluate nominations and select the most likely candidates. Metal tags will be placed on trees recording their age and discovered.

Students who successfully identify a Witness Tree at least 250 years old will be honored at a Board of Supervisors’ meeting and at a special recognition event on Arbor Day April 24. On that day they will plant a tree in hopes that it will bear witness to the next two hundred and fifty years of our Republic.

Contact Witnesstree@goochlandhistory.org with questions.