Qual è l'albero più antico di Gettysburg?
Gettysburg's oldest mapped witness tree is General Gibbon's Walnut Tree, a black walnut on Cemetery Ridge dated at over 200 years by the survey behind gettysburgwitnesstrees.com, its trunk measured at 284 centimetres round in 2023. It stands where Confederate troops briefly broke through during Pickett's Charge on 3 July 1863, and it is the sole survivor of 33 witness trees whose cavities the park filled with concrete in 1916 and 1917; the concrete is still visible through a crevice at its base. The Sickles Witness Tree and the Devil's Den Witness Tree are both put at roughly 175 to 220 years, close behind it. The Copse of Trees, the battlefield's most photographed clump, is not a contender: the park service states plainly that none of today's trees there predate the battle.
All four trees stand on public land inside Gettysburg National Military Park, free to visit, reached on foot from roadside pull-offs along the park's tour roads. The Sickles Witness Tree is at auto tour stop 11 near the Trostle Farm; General Gibbon's Walnut Tree and the Copse of Trees both stand on Cemetery Ridge, a few minutes' walk apart, off Hancock Avenue; the Devil's Den Witness Tree looks down from Sickles Avenue over the ground where Longstreet's assault on 2 July 1863 began. None of the ages here comes from a core sample; all are drawn from period photographs, sketches or documented measurements of trunk growth, and the project treats them as careful estimates rather than settled counts. The Copse of Trees is the exception that proves the rule: it earns its place not as a witness but as the exact spot Pickett's Charge was aimed at on 3 July 1863, fenced since 1887 to keep souvenir hunters from carrying it away. All four sit within a short drive of each other and of downtown Gettysburg.
Se conosci un albero più antico a Gettysburg, o vedi qui un errore, faccelo sapere e lo correggiamo.
Qui c'è un erroreSegnala un altro albero