Wood cookie, one slice kept
A white oak has stood on the courthouse lawn in Chesterfield, Virginia since 1814. Lawson Nunnally, then a deputy clerk of the county court, planted it during the War of 1812. The county started measuring it in 1916, when it was 11 feet 11 inches around. In 2023 it was 18 feet 3 inches around.
Fungus got into the trunk. Testing started in 2019, a support system went in to buy time, and in November the county takes it down.
What gets kept: three or four saplings for the arboretum. A cross-section with the ring dates marked, for the historical society. Benches, desks, and wood cookies stamped with the picture of the tree.
212 years of shade. Kept as a coaster.
I have never stood under it. Panel two is drawn from a 2016 street view frame of the square. Reported by WTVR CBS 6 and The Richmonder, October 2026.
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