Live Oak Society

Revisiting the Lastrapes (Seven Brothers) Oak

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Lastrapes Oak, Afternoon Light, Washington, LA

On a recent visit to Louisiana, I took a side road off of the Interstate Hwy. to visit the small town of Washington and the Lastrapes (or Seven Brothers) Oak. Located about a mile out of town on State Highway 182, the large old oak still stands proudly and is well-maintained by the Lastrapes family who still owns the property on which the oak grows. When I stopped to re-photograph the tree, there was a work crew doing maintenance on the fence (shown behind the tree in the photo above).

The Lastrapes Oak is the seventh tree listed in Dr. Edwin L. Stephens’ 1934 magazine article in the Louisiana Conservation Review. It is one of the original 43 member trees in the Live Oak Society and is #9 on the Live Oak Society’s registry, which contains a growing list of more than 10,000 member trees. Even my panoramic photograph hardly gives an idea of the massive size and girth of the unusual multiple trunks of this old oak. The main trunk is more than 33 feet in circumference. The largest secondary trunk is almost 30 feet around at a height of 4 feet. This beautiful old tree is one of my favorite live oaks in Louisiana and is surely a monument of a different kind.

The Seven Brothers’ name supposedly came from a story that said the tree was named for seven Lastrapes brothers who had left home to fight in the Civil War. Another variation of the story, described in Ethelyn Orso’s Louisiana Live Oak Lore, claimed that the birth of his seventh son prompted Jean Henri Lastrapes to request that seven oaks be planted; the workers arrived late in the day with the seedlings and temporarily put them in one container (or hole). The business of the days that followed in the cotton fields distracted the workers from ever completing the planting task—and thus the trees grew together, sharing the close proximity of their original planting site. For a complete story of the tree’s history, you can read my original post in this blog.

Whichever story is accurate, the tree is more appropriately referred to today as the Lastrapes Oak, after the family who has owned the property where it resides for several generations and takes pride in caring for the well-being of the historic oak. It is one of the best-maintained ancient oaks in Louisiana.

(Prints of all photos in my blog are available for purchase. For information, email bill@williamguion.com)

The Stonaker Oak – John James Audubon’s Favorite Live Oak?

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The Stonaker Oak was #18 on Dr. Edwin Stephens list of the first 43 inductee trees in the Live Oak Society in 1934.  It’s an old oak with lots of stories.  It was named for J.S. Stonaker who in 1934 owned the property on which the old tree was growing. The photo below was made by Dr. Stephens and is from the University of Lafayette archives, probably around 1930-1935.

Library archive of Dr. Stephens’ photo: Stonaker / St.Maurice Oak, circa 1930

Yet, for years prior to 1934, the old oak was known locally as the St. Maurice Oak. The Labatut brothers, whose family has lived next to the old oak since the early 1800s, still call the old tree the St. Maurice Oak.

Dr. Stephens’ photo: Stonaker / St.Maurice Oak, circa 1930

This has always puzzled me. So, where did the St. Maurice name come from? A topographical map of Pointe Coupee Parish shows a small Island, or “towhead,” named the St. Maurice Towhead, located directly offshore from the spot where the St. Maurice/Stonaker Oak grows. Thus, the St. Maurice Oak. But, from where did the Towhead name originate? It’s a mystery.

According to a 1932 article from the Louisiana Conservation News magazine, when the oak was measured by Stanley C. Arthur in September 1929, the tree’s girth was 22 ft. 4 in.; The canopy from north to south was 157 ft, and the east to west spread was 166 ft. 4 in. However, before the large limb was removed that hung over the road alongside the oak, its spread was 217 ft.

circa 1898 photo of St. Maurice Oak, prior to lower limb on right side being removed

In the previously mentioned Louisiana Conservation News magazine, there was a curious story about naturalist and artist, John James Audubon and the St. Maurice Oak. Audubon was hired in 1821 by Mr. and Mrs. James Pirrie, owners of Oakley Plantation, on the east bank of the river near St. Francisville, to teach their daughter Eliza to draw. It was during his time as tutor for Eliza that he became especially interested in drawing and painting birds.

According to the Audubon State Historic Site, while at Oakley “Audubon began work on at least thirty-two of his famed paintings of wild North American birds. He supposedly crossed the river frequently via the Bayou Sara ferry to hunt birds on the Pointe Coupee-side of the river. The Point Coupee ferry landing was located about a mile downriver from the St. Maurice Oak, and Audubon was a welcome guest at the Labatut home (located still just a few hundred feet upriver from the old oak). According to the Louisiana Conservation News article, Audubon “undoubtedly sheltered under the St. Maurice Oak on hot days,” and was fond of the old tree and its wide-spreading branches.

So, was the St. Maurice Oak, Audubon’s favorite live oak? It’s possible…

Stonaker / St. Maurice Oak, October 2015, upriver view
Stonaker / St. Maurice Oak, October 2015, downriver view with Labatut home in background
Stonaker Oak, close up view of trunk and scars of lost limbs

The Abbot Paul Schaueble Oak

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St. Joseph Abbey, Near Covington, LA

Abbot-Paul-Scheuble-Oak
Abbot Paul Schaueble Oak

While traveling to Mandeville from Ponchatoula, Cyndi and I stopped in at the St. Joseph Abbey in St. Benenedict, LA., just west of Covington. The abbey grounds are home to four Live Oak Society member trees.  The largest, the Abbot Paul Schaueble Oak (also called the Abbey Oak), has a beautiful spread and a girth of approximately 22 feet 10 inches. The tree is named after the Benedictine monk who was the first head of the monastery established in 1889 by a small group of monks from St. Meinrad Abbey in Indiana.

Abbey-Oak-2
Abbot Paul Schaueble Oak, study 2

You’ll see in my photos, that several limbs of the 60 foot-tall tree are supported by metal pole braces. According to the abbey historian, the tree was damaged by a wind storm (and possibly a tornado) that swept through the area in November of 1957. The winds damaged the mid-section of the oak causing a severe split. But instead of cutting the tree down, the Abbey chose to secure the split with heavy bolts and limb supports. So far, the tree appears to have stabilized.

Abbey Oak with new spring growth, March 2016

Note: The abbey was hit hard by heavy rain, winds, and flooding the week before our visit. It was spring, and the old oak was shedding leaves to begin new spring growth and flowers.  That’s why the oak has so few leaves in the photos above.

Welcome to the 100 Oaks Project

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Edward Douglas White Oak, near Thibodaux, LA

This blog chronicles my search to document the 100 oldest and most notable live oak trees in Louisiana. The elder oaks included in this project are primarily “centenarians” – more than 100 years old. Their sizes range from approximately 17 ft. to 40 ft. in circumference and their lives span a time period stretching between 100 to 600+ years, over several human generations. The oldest oaks documented here were possibly mature trees before Europeans settled Louisiana in the early 1700s.

This project began with a search for the original 43 live oaks that in 1934 became charter members of the Live Oak Society. In that year, Dr. Edwin L. Stephens proposed creating an organization comprised of 100+ year old live oaks in an article he wrote for the Louisiana Conservation Review. From my original search, I found that almost 20% of the original 43 member trees had been lost in the 80 or so years since the Live Oak Society was founded — mostly due to urban expansion, development, storms, pollution, decreasing soil quality, and old age.

The ultimate goal of this effort is to raise awareness for the importance of old live oak trees as an important cultural and historic resource. Every old oak has generations of human stories associated with it and when these trees are gone, part of our local history and culture dies with them.

Live oaks are heritage, heirlooms, and history all rolled into one. On the old land maps, oaks marked where one property line ended and another began. They were a point on the horizon to aim the blade of a plow or the nose of a tractor. They mark where back roads cross and provide a shady spot where neighbors can park their pickups, pass a plastic thermos cup of chicory coffee, and discuss the weather. Duels were fought and honor won or lost under their bowed limbs. People picnic under them, get married under them, dance the two-step under them, and finally when the music ends, are laid to rest alongside their massive roots.

Most areas of Louisiana and the South don’t have laws protecting these gentle icons of Southern culture from removal or abuse by humans and so each year we lose a part of our history and a valuable ecological resource.

The Live Oaks of LSU

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Every old oak in Louisiana has stories connected to it. LSU’s oaks are no exception. Louisiana State University was established in 1860 and construction began at the current location in the early 1920s.

Oxley Oak, LSU Quadrangle

Steele Burden and the planting of LSU’s oaks—Ollie Bryce Steele Burden (known simply as Steele) grew up in Baton Rouge and spent weekends on his family’s 600-acre farm, Windrush Plantation (now Burden Gardens). As a young man Steel traveled to Europe, and was inspired by the gardens he visited there, As an adult, he moved onto the Windrush property permanently and began his experiments with garden design, creating a small formal garden there.

Though he never earned a degree in landscape architecture, Steele took courses at LSU before he began working as a gardener and landscaper for the City of Baton Rouge. In the late 1920s, he designed plantings for Baton Rouge’s City Park and later became its superintendent of gardens. His work on City Park drew the attention and admiration of administrators at LSU and he was invited in 1932 to work for the university as the first grounds caretaker and landscape architect.

From its beginnings, LSU’s campus was envisioned to be a park-like setting whose natural beauty might inspire learning and scholarship. The physical layout was first devised by the Olmstead Brothers, sons of Frederick Law Olmstead, whose landscape architecture firm designed Central Park in New York, Audubon Park in New Orleans, several national parks, and other notable university campuses.

Since the Olmsted brothers were strictly landscape architects, German architect Theodore Link was hired in 1921 to design the buildings for the new campus. He adapted the Olmsteds’ layout and added his own ideas to the specific placement and design of structures. Some of the first buildings to be constructed were those around the Quadrangle.

Steele was given a free hand, but a tight budget, to transform primarily empty agricultural acreage into a pleasant green space. He began planting what he referred to as “street trees” along campus thoroughfares and around the first buildings—the parade grounds and around the Quadrangle complex.

These trees were hearty native stock that Steele knew would provide the most long-term benefit for the campus—primarily southern live oaks (Quercus virginiana), interspersed with southern magnolia trees (Magnolia grandiflora), and pine trees (pinus species) due to the compatibility of these trees. Steel obtained many of these trees with the help of E.A. McIlhenny’s Avery Island nursery and planted them based on his “intuitive” approach to garden design.

Historic aerial photographs of the campus show that the Quadrangle oaks were well-established by February of 1938. That would make the earliest oaks more than 90 years of age today, since McIlhenny’s young oaks were ordinarily 5 to 10 years of age when purchased. 

Today, LSU has more than 1300 live oaks on campus comprising what has become an “urban forest”  

Supposedly the oldest oak on the LSU campus grows between the Manship School of Mass Communications and Hodges Hall. It predates the earliest oak plantings by Steele Burden and may be well over 200 years old.