From our news services
The O. A. Peay Alumni Association at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, May 23, will unveil and dedicate a plaque for Hyde County’s Davie Poplar tree, which was planted in 1993 on the campus of the former O. A. Peay School, 1430 Main St., Swan Quarter.
The association, which was formed in the early 1950s, holds their annual reunion and homecoming during the Memorial Day weekend on the school grounds, 1430 Main Street, Swan Quarter. The Davie Poplar tree program begins at 2:30 pm.
The history of the tree goes back to 1793 with the Revolutionary War General William Richardson Davie. Davie was one of several committee members who had been given the mission to find just the right location to lay the cornerstone for the nation’s first public university–the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
Legend has it that one day during their search, Davie and other committee members stopped to rest and have a picnic lunch under the shade of a massive poplar (tulip) tree. Forthwith they decided that the university would be built nearby. That tree, eventually named for Davie, still stands on the campus of UNC-CH.
In 1993, some 200 years later, as UNC-CH began planning their bicentennial celebration, Peter White, director of the North Carolina Botanical Garden, and others proposed the idea of propagating the tree and distributing them to each of North Carolina’s 100 counties.
Sixth graders from across the state wrote essays and the winner in each county traveled to Chapel Hill to receive their county’s tree.
Erica Britt Green of Swan Quarter, who attended O. A. Peay School, represented Hyde County. The entire school participated in the planting of the tree, which can be seen behind the school. Sixth graders were chosen to participate because they would graduate from high school in 2000. That year represented a continuing legacy of public education into the new millennium.
The tree has grown and prospered, but somehow, no marker or plaque recognizing the event was ever erected.
Spearheaded by Archie Green, the current president of the association, a beautiful bronze plaque marking the occasion of the tree’s planting will be installed in time for this year’s homecoming.
