The town of Oak City will be planting a new Oak Tree on Friday, April 26 in the town commons in honor of Arbor Day, 2024.
The ceremonial planting begins at 11 a.m. near the town’s welcome sign. The event is a continuation of the 250th Martin County Anniversary Celebration. The main committee for the anniversary will be providing a marker for this tree stating it was planted during the county’s anniversary year.
While the tree will join hundreds of others in the one square mile town, Oak City’s reach, when it comes to trees, extends outside of town’s boundaries.
A Davies Poplar with close historical Oak City ties stands tall in front of the Martin County Board of Education offices in Williamston thanks to former Oak City resident Kedrick Perry.
Perry was in sixth grade in 1993 when he was chosen to join 99 other students representing every county in North Carolina to plant a sapling from the famed Davie Poplar that graces the University of North Carolina.
The Davie Poplar was said to already be 100 years old in 1793 when the nation’s first public University’s cornerstone was laid nearby.
The sixth grade students were chosen in 1993 after competing in an essay contest to take the saplings back to their counties to be planted in honor of the 200-year university anniversary.
Perry’s Davie Poplar seedling has endured much through its 31 years in Martin County. However, now it faces abandonment once the school board offices relocate to the Martin County Innovation Campus.
Local resident Jeanne Manor wants the county to honor and protect the symbolic tree once the property is vacated and sold.
“I plan on meeting with Chase Connor and seeing what can be done about possibly fencing the tree and placing a plaque on it,” said Maner. “This is a part of our history and it needs to be protected.”
Nobody seems to have an exact count on surviving trees, however, aside from the 100 given to North Carolina counties, descendants of William Davie were given another 45 saplings.
For Perry, the day was more than memorable. He heard languages he’d never heard before, saw people dressed in ways that were different from what he saw in eastern North Carolina and it felt like another world, according to Perry.
After Perry had stints at University of California, Berkley and Loyola University in New Orleans he now is Chief Equity Officer at Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.
“The Davie Poplar I received from UNC is at the Martin County Board of Education and it’s doing well,” said Perry. “And I am also very excited Oak City is getting a new Oak Tree.”
Currently the board of education hasn’t set a firm moving date.
The future of the Martin County Davie Poplar is safe for now.
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