Ruth Bowling Nichols Arboretum

The Frank Lloyd Wright Ginkgo stands in front of the home the pioneering architect built for himself on Forest Avenue in Oak Park, Illinois. Wright lived in the house for 20 years, during which time his ideas about architecture evolved. 

Wright and his colleagues broke from traditional architectural styles and developed the Prairie Style, characterized by horizontal lines and overhanging roofs. The structures he designed changed the course of 20th century architecture. 

The Frank Lloyd Wright Ginkgo stands as a reminder of the natural beauty incorporated into the architect’s designs. The tree at the Ruth Bowling Nichols arboretum grew out of a cutting from the Frank Lloyd Wright Ginkgo in Illinois. 

Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born to a slave woman and unknown white man in Talbot County, Maryland, in February 1818. At 18, he worked as a ship caulker for a Baltimore shipbuilder. It was at this time that he met his future wife and free person Anna Murray. 

He left Baltimore in 1838 to gain freedom in the North and married Anna. The pair settled in New Bedford, Mass. and it was here that he adopted the surname of Douglass, taken from Sir Walter Scott’s Lady of the Lake. He became prominent in the abolition movement and gave lectures throughout New England and New York. 

In the wake of the Emancipation Proclamation, Douglass issued his “Men of Color, to Arms!” urging free blacks to volunteer for the U.S. Army. In 1877 he broke the “whites only” covenant when he purchased the Cedar Hill house in Washington D.C., often referring to the massive white oak tree that graced his front yard in his diary. 

The arboretum tree grew out of an acorn hand-picked from the Frederick Douglass White Oak in Washington D.C. 

On a warm day in 1857, thousands of townspeople from San Marcos, Texas, gathered under an oak grove to await the arrival of battle hero Sam Houston. 
 
Though he was serving a term in the U.S. Senate, the 64-year-old campaigner was running for governor of the Lone Star State. Still popular for his role in the Battle of San Jacinto in the 1835 fight for Texas’ independence, his appearance drew a large crowd. 
 
Mary Elizabeth Davis was among a group of women who made a flag to present to Houston. Before he mounted the platform to deliver his speech, he kissed some of the women who offered him the flag. 
 
The largest oak thus became known as the Sam Houston Kissing Oak but some confusion followed whether it was the single bur oak or one of the adjacent live oaks. The bur oak has since succumbed to decay, but its acorns have produced authentic direct-offspring trees that live on at the Ruth Bowling Nichols Arboretum. 

As an impresario, Stephen F. Austin brought 300 American families to his deceased father’s land patent to settle the Texas territory. Austin’s continuing colonization of Texas increased the size of the state by a third and led to the eventual statehood of Texas. He also founded the Texas Rangers. 

Austin died Dec. 27, 1836, at a friend’s home in Brazoria County near West Columbia, Texas. Upon hearing the news, President Sam Houston said, “The Father of Texas is no more. The first pioneer of the wilderness has departed.” 

Several live oak trees stood on that West Columbia home site and they remain there today. The SFA Live Oak at the Ruth Bowling Nichols Arboretum was grown from a seed taken from those trees. 

It’s been more than 170 years since U.S. soldiers rounded up the Cherokee Indians and forced them westward along the Trail of Tears—a desolate pathway leading to reservations in Oklahoma. Much has changed since then, but one thing remains the same. The Trail of Tears Redbud stands today, just as it did in 1838. 

The Cherokees were forced into Eastern Oklahoma after a small group of their tribe signed the Treaty of New Echota with the U.S. Government. The Treaty turned over Cherokee lands in the east to the government in exchange for land in Oklahoma. Most Cherokees protested the treaty. About 4,000 Cherokees died along the route. 

The Trail of Tears Redbud at the Ruth Bowling Nichols Arboretum was grown from a seed taken from a redbud that still lines the Trail of Tears.

Seeking a spiritually fulfilling relationship with the natural world, Henry David Thoreau left organized society in 1845 “to watch the progress of the seasons.”  

During his two-year sojourn beside Walden Pond, Thoreau once wrote: “Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.” His journal notes and observations published in Walden have provided a timeless source of naturalist inspiration since 1854. 

As part of the national effort to preserve Walden Woods, trees like the Walden Woods Red Maple have been grown from seeds of trees that once shaded Thoreau as he contemplated nature.