Ohio History Journal

THE OHIO BUCKEYE.

In a pamphlet entitled "Ohio Emblems and Monuments"

compiled by the editor of the QUARTERLY in 1906 is an account

of the Ohio Buckeye which is here reproduced in adapted form.

It is somewhat singular, but true nevertheless, that the

average Ohioan is not able to point out with certainty the tree

whose name is the soubriquet of his state. In the popular de-

scriptions, fact and fancy, science and oratory are so promis-

cuously blended that there is nothing remarkable in the resulting

confusion.

F. Andrew Michaux, the eminent French botanist who

visited this country in 1807, was somewhat unfortunate in his

description of the Ohio Buckeye, or pavia Ohioensis. He says:

"This species of the horse chestnut, which is mentioned by

no author that has hitherto treated of the trees and plants of

North America, is unknown in the Atlantic parts of the United

States. I have found it only beyond the mountains, and par-

ticularly on the banks of the Ohio for an interval of about 100

miles, between Pittsburgh and Marietta, where it is extremely

common. It is called "buckeye" by the inhabitants, but as this

name has been given to the pavia lutea, I have denominated it

"Ohio buckeye" because it is most abundant on the banks of this

river, and have prefixed the synonym of "American horse chest-

nut" because it proved to be a proper horse chestnut by its fruit,

which is prickly like that of the Asiatic species instead of that

of the paviae.

"The ordinary stature of the American horse chestnut is ten

or twelve feet, but it sometimes equals thirty or thirty-five feet

in height and twelve or fifteen inches in diameter. The leaves are

palmated and consist of five leaflets parting from a common

center, unequal in size, oval-acuminate and irregularly toothed.

The entire length of the leaf is nine or ten inches, and its breadth

six or eight inches.

"The bloom of this tree is brilliant. Its flowers appear early

in the spring and are collected in numerous white bunches. The

fruit is one of the same color with that of the common horse

chestnut and of the large buckeye, and of about half the size.

It is contained in fleshy, prickly capsules, and is ripe in the be-

ginning of autumn.

(275)

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278       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

"On the trunk of the largest trees the bark is blackish and

the cellular integument is impregnated with a venomous and dis-

agreeable odor. The wood is white, soft and wholly useless."

The Ohio buckeye tree reaches an average height of con-

siderably more than twelve feet, but the greatest error of the

French botanist is in the description of the bloom. This is far

from "brilliant." The flowers are inconspicuous, never white,

always a yellowish green. Michaux makes amends in part for

his mistake by inserting a plate of a cluster of flowers which are

not white, as stated in the text, but yellowish green as seen in

nature. For ornamental purposes the tree has nothing to make

it preferred to the horse chestnut.

As the two trees are frequently confused in the popular

mind the following points of difference may help the casual ob-

server to readily distinguish them: the leaf of the horse chestnut

is said to be seven fingered, it divides into seven leaflets; the leaf

of the buckeye is five fingered, it divides into five leaflets. There

are variations from this rule. Sometimes the divisions of the

horse chestnut leaf are fewer than seven leaflets, but seven is the

prevailing number. The buckeye rarely has a leaf of six leaflets

and more frequently of fewer than five, but the prevailing num-

ber is five. The leaflets of the horse chestnut are larger and

broader near the point than those of the buckeye.

The flowers of the horse chestnut are cone shaped and

showy, almost white in color with slight markings of pink and

brown. The flower of the buckeye is much smaller, light green

in color and so nearly the shade of the fresh leaves that they are

inconspicuous, blending in the general light green of the foliage.

The horse chestnut, as a rule, blooms later than the buckeye.

The two cuts published herewith show very distinctly the con-

trast in form of the leaves. They were taken from sprays of

the horse chestnut and the buckeye cut from Columbus trees

on the same day. It will be noticed that the flowers of the buck-

eye are gone and the fruit has started development while the

horse chestnut is in full bloom.

How the buckeye got its name is quite obvious. "When the

shell cracks and exposes to view the rich brown nut with the

pale brown scar, the resemblance to the half-opened eye of a

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deer is not fancied but real. From this resemblance came the

name buckeye."

How it happened that Ohio was called the Buckeye State is

not so certainly known. Dr. S. P. Hildreth, the pioneer historian

of Marietta, in describing the ceremonies attending the opening

of the first court of the Northwest Territory, September 2, 1788,

mentions the presence of a large body of Indians, representing

some of the most powerful tribes of the northwest, who had come

for the purpose of making a treaty. These sons of the forest

were much impressed with the ceremonials. They especially ad-

mired the bearing of the high sheriff, Col. Ebenezer Sproat, a

man of splendid physique, who with drawn sword, led the pro-

cession, and called him "Hetuck," which in our language signi-

fied "big buckeye." This expression of admiration was after-

ward frequently applied to Col. Sproat, "and became a sort of

nickname by which he was familiarly known among his asso-

ciates."

"That," says the historian, "was certainly the first known

application to an individual in the sense now used, but there is

no evidence that the name continued to be so used and applied

from that time forward, or that it became a fixed and accepted

soubriquet of the state and people until more than half a cen-

tury afterwards; during all of which time the buckeye continued

to be an object of more or less interest, and as immigration made

its way across the state, and the settlements extended into the

rich valleys where it was found by travellers and explorers, and

was by them carried back to the east and shown as a rare

curiosity from what was then known as the 'far west,' possessing

certain medical properties for which it was rarely prized. But

the name never became fully crystallized until 1840, when in the

crucible of what is known as the 'bitterest, longest and most

extraordinary political contest ever waged in the United States,'

the name Buckeye became a fixed soubriquet of the State of Ohio

and its people, known and understood wherever either is spoken

of, and likely to continue as long as either shall be remembered

or the English language endures."

The Ohio campaign opened at Columbus, February 22, 1840.

Among the striking devices to attract attention was a log cabin

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from Union county, "built of buckeye logs, upon a wagon drawn

in the procession by horses." Within the cabin and on the roof

the jolly campaigners sang a song composed by Otway Curry

for the occasion, the words of which were in part as follows:

"⁰ where, tell me where

Was your buckeye cabin made?

*     *    *    *     *    *     *

"'Twas built among the merry boys

Who wield the plough and spade,

Where the log-cabins stand,

In the bonnie buckeye shade.

"Oh what, tell me what, is to be your cabin's fate?

*     *         *     *    *     *

We'll wheel it to the capital and place it there elate,

For a token and a sign of the bonnie Buckeye State."

While this remarkable campaign did much to fix the appel-

lation and gave it wide currency, there is evidence that its sig-

nificance was generally well understood at a much earlier date.

Cyrus P. Bradley, while in Ohio in the summer of 1835, made

this entry in his journal:

"We were shown many specimens of the buckeye, the shrub

or tree from which the inhabitants of Ohio derive their national

soubriquet. It bears a round nut, which is covered with an outer

rind or shell, and on whose surface appears a white circular

spot like the pupil of the eye."

This shows conclusively that the emblematic significance of

the buckeye was known at least five years before the Tippecanoe

campaign. Just when it was first applied to the state of Ohio

and its citizenship, is a problem for the local historians of the

future. Here is an opportunity for some industrious student

who will faithfully consult the literature of Ohio from, 1788 to

1835. The newspapers published from 1793 to the latter date,

almost continuous files of which are now available in Ohio and

other libraries, would probably throw light upon this interest-

ing subject.

In the light of the foregoing statements, we must not take

too literally many of the fanciful things that have been said and

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written of the buckeye. It is true, as Dr. Drake observes, that

"it is not merely a native of the West, but peculiar to it; has

received from the botanist the specific name of Ohioensis, from

its abundance in our beautiful valley; and is the only tree of our

whole forest that does not grow elsewhere." It was never ex-

tensively used, however, for many of the other qualities that he

enumerates in his entertaining and inspiring address at a ban-

quet given in Cincinnati, on the occasion of the forty-fourth an-

niversary of the admission of Ohio into the Union. The wood,

which is light, soft and strong, has been used for bowls and

artificial limbs. The bark has certain medicinal qualities. The

fruit, though not edible, is beautiful to look upon. Though in-

ferior in its foliage to the horse chestnut and the sugar maple,

it can be trained into an attractive shade tree. All things con-

sidered, the name of no other tree of our primeval forest, per-

haps, could more appropriately have been chosen as the soubriquet

of Ohio.

 

 

For interesting and very appreciative descriptions of the

buckeye, see the following:

Howe's "Historical Collections," Vol. 1, pages 210-17. In

these pages will be found a description by William M. Farrar,

including the address by Dr. Drake.

The Ohio Magazine for August, 1906. Here will be found

under the caption "Ohio Tree Family," a fine article by Lena

Kline Reed, appropriately illustrated, in which is told the story

of the Ohio Buckeye tree.

Vol. X, of the New International Encyclopaedia, opposite

page 232, contains fine illustrations of the Ohio buckeye and the

horse chestnut. The modern botanical name of the former is

aesculus glabra; of the latter, aesculus hippocastanum.

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