Witness Tree Remembrance Stump

Arlington, Texas

The Witness Stump is a big improvement over The Witness Tree. As a tree it was tall and old, yes, but not especially tall or old. People were reportedly hanged from it, which made it one of the trees that kill, but that was probably true of other trees in Texas. Its principle claim to fame was that people would make binding agreements beneath its boughs. Frankly, that's nowhere near as interesting to us as if its trunk had been riddled with scythes.

Now, however, the former Witness Tree is worth visiting. It was uprooted to make way for a Kmart, replanted, and almost immediately died. The farmer who had sold the land felt so guilty that he sectioned off a part of it into a tiny park, and made its centerpiece a hunk of the tree's blackened trunk, reverently set on a little metal stand, the botanical equivalent of a corpse in a glass coffin.

Do not weep for The Witness Stump. It has joined a select group of famous stumps, with a long and promising career ahead of it.