An iron railing has been placed around the Catholic Oak, at 

 Lonsdale, with a tablet commemorating the history of the famous land- 

 mark which may yet remain through another generation. 



THE WESLEY OAK 



On St. Simon's Island, Ga., less than half a mile from the ruins 

 of Fort Frederica, stands a gnarled and ancient live oak, under whose 

 wide-spread branches tradition says that the Wesleys preached, the 

 pioneers of Methodism in this country. 



The old tree is a memento of events enacted near it, of far more 

 stirring character. Numbering its years at not less than two hundred, 

 probably many more, its growth was contemporary with the earliest 

 history of English colonists in Georgia; with the landing on her coast 

 of the good ship Anne, which brought General James Edward Ogle- 

 thorpe, "the most illustrious Englishman to cross the sea during the 

 period of American colonization," when he came with his followers to 

 establish in the New World a refuge for the debtors of England ; and 

 with his valiant conquest of the French and Spanish invaders who 

 threatened the rights and liberties of English settlers in America. 



"From the outstretched limbs of the old oak," says Mr. Lucien 

 Lamar Knight, the historian, "trail the pendant mosses, giving it an 

 appearance of great solemnity and beauty, and making it the pictur- 

 esque embodiment of the austere memories which cluster about the 

 sacred spot." Two hundred feet in height, it stands at the gate of the 

 churchyard of Christ Church, on whose parish-register are the names 

 of some of the earliest settlers on the island, and under its broad shade 

 sleep many generations. 



The tree is on the direct road to Fort Prederica, built in 1735, 

 by General Oglethorpe, as a defence against Spanish power, and 

 named for Frederic, Prince of Wales. 



TEACHES OAK 



The old tree, which stands on a little peninsula in a creek tribu- 

 tary to the Neuse River, at Oriental, N. C., was a prominent figure in 

 the early history of the State. Long before civilization had placed 

 a lighthouse or other means of guidance on those shores, the big oak 

 served to point the way for many a mariner. 



It is associated with the pirate Edward Teach, a daring and 

 troublesome character of those early days. Because of his thick, black 

 whiskers, he went by the name of Blackbeard. He was an English- 

 man, and in his youth a sailor under a pirate captain named Korna- 

 gold, and proved himself an apt pupil. In 1718, he was given 

 command of a ship captured by his master, and set sail for American 

 waters. 



The coasts of North Carolina and Virginia were Teach's special 

 hunting-ground. It is said that when pursued by larger vessels which 



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