150 THE HUMAN SIDE OF TREES 



in 1682 concluded his famous treaty with the In- 

 dians. This noble Quaker was the first European 

 to carry out in his dealings with the red men the 

 doctrine of brotherly love. They were so impressed 

 that they never broke the verbal oaths made under 

 the Treaty Tree at that time. The monument to 

 the pact was felled by a storm in 1810, aged two 

 hundred and eighty-three years and measuring 

 twenty-four feet in girth. 



Down on King's Mountain, South Carolina, 

 there used to be (and possibly may be yet) a splen- 

 did specimen of the tulip tree with which is con- 

 nected a gruesome tale. Near the spot, in October, 

 1780, a force of South Carolina revolutionists (or 

 Republicans, as they were called in the South), un- 

 der the command of Cleveland, Shelby, Campbell, 

 Sevier and McDowell, defeated one thousand Tories 

 led by Major Ferguson of Cornwallis' staff. The 

 past crimes and acts of wanton destruction com- 

 mitted by some of the captured royalists had been 

 so disgraceful that they were condemned to imme- 

 diate death by court-martial. A large tulip tree 

 on the bank of a nearby brook was selected as the 

 scene of execution. To its green boughs ten of the 

 prisoners were hung, giving it an immortal but un- 

 enviable fame. 



One day in 1849 some obscure farmer near 



