Finally got around to taking some pictures of this beast. It sits on the property line and was used as a boundary marker back at least 100 years back when this land was all completely cleared. I actually have an aerial photo from 1938 where you can see the tree in the corner of a plowed field.
Scale is so difficult in these kinds of pictures but I measured the circumference as 12.5 feet making dbh approximately 3.9 feet.
Some of the HUGE limbs are dead as you can see in the pictures. One of these days I will take a ladder out and trim them off. They would be a very good haul of wood on their own. There are several of this tree's descendants in an area around it. The largest of those is 7 feet in circumference. I am in awe every time I get around it. A forester from the extension service came out a few months after I bought the house and said he would think the tree is at least 150 years old and could easily live twice that. This tree likely began life around the same time my ancestors arrived in Columbus Ohio from Germany and Ireland. It was probably a sapling when Morgan's Raiders came through SW Ohio in the Civil War.
Scale is so difficult in these kinds of pictures but I measured the circumference as 12.5 feet making dbh approximately 3.9 feet.
Some of the HUGE limbs are dead as you can see in the pictures. One of these days I will take a ladder out and trim them off. They would be a very good haul of wood on their own. There are several of this tree's descendants in an area around it. The largest of those is 7 feet in circumference. I am in awe every time I get around it. A forester from the extension service came out a few months after I bought the house and said he would think the tree is at least 150 years old and could easily live twice that. This tree likely began life around the same time my ancestors arrived in Columbus Ohio from Germany and Ireland. It was probably a sapling when Morgan's Raiders came through SW Ohio in the Civil War.