THE PEACE TREE

Image from the Library of Congress

Many tourist groups visiting the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, such as this one from South Carolina, also took the short trip south to see Big Trees Grove.

“We had breakfast at Watsonville and from there stopped off at Big Tree station to see the ‘Big Trees’ which are in a grove six miles from Santa Cruz. Most of the trees were named … These trees were so pretty and green. Nothing could surpass their stableness and beauty, even though they had been visited by the forest fires. It seemed wonderful that such large trees as these could still stand there and put forth their soft fresh leaves, when all the lower part of their bodies had been burned out and nothing was left but a thin outside wall …"

One famous visitor to the exposition who also came to Big Trees Grove was William Jennings Bryan. The "three time presidential candidate and Secretary of State in the Wilson administration" arrived in July 1915. Bryan's visit resulted in an unique legacy.

William Jennings Bryan by Harris & Ewing, 1913 - Library of Congress

"It was during the Panama-Pacific Exposition, when C.C. Moore, president of the exposition, and Mrs. Moore, entertained Mr. Bryan and a group of foreign diplomats at their home in Santa Cruz. The party spent the morning driving about [the] Monterey Bay area, and then went to the Big Trees. Mr. Bryan, a great lover of trees, was deeply impressed with the grandeur of the famed grove, and said, 'I would like to plant a seedling while I am here and dedicate it to Peace' ... So a seedling was selected and taken to the Moore home where it was dedicated at a simple little ceremony on the beautiful grounds at the Moore home."

C.C. [Charles Caldwell] Moore's home situated on the old Mexican Rancho Tre Ojos de Agua, was located on High Street. Moore, a prominent San Francisco businessman, purchased the property in 1906 and promptly built a new palatial home designed by architect Julia Morgan. Moore added more extensive gardens, making the home a local showplace.

View from Moore's estate by Appleby from “California Country Homes: No. 1 – The Beautiful Garden Surroundings of C.C. Moore, Near Santa Cruz,” by Josephine Clifford McCrackin, The Overland Monthly, January 1912.

In addition to Bryan, the other witnesses to the new addition to Moore's garden were Santa Cruz mayor Fred R. Howe and William T. Jeter, president of the Santa Cruz County Bank. Following a pleasant luncheon

"Jaconde Ferrere, caretaker of the Moore estate, polished a trowl and dug a hole and Mr. Bryan planted the little sapling which was about six inches high. From the time it was planted, the tree did not grow an inch and when Mr. Bryan came to the coast during the next year or so he telephoned from San Francisco to find out what growth the sapling had made, and was disappointed when told it hadn't even started. He said, 'Never mind, it's a Peace tree, and when this war is over the tree will grow.' His prediction certainly came true, for from Armistice Day, November 11, to the following March, the sapling grew 27 inches."

The "Peace Tree" is apparently still standing and doing well.

Since at least 1906 there was talk of a tree to be dedicated to Bryan himself "as soon as he is seated in the presidential chair ..."  Alas, Bryan neither attained the presidency nor officially a tree. In 1916 a group of Ohio visitors to Big Trees Grove were shown "... a fine large tree ... saved for Bryan for more than twenty years, until last January when the storms laid it low. During a forest fire nearly a hundred years ago its heart was entirely burned out to a height of ten or fifteen feet leaving only a shell about twelve inches in thickness to support this mammoth tree three hundred feet high and twelve or fifteen feet in diameter at the stump and eight feet nearly 100 feet from the ground. It fell on a saloon building dividing it exactly in half, demolishing the bar and fixtures completely. The name Bryan would have been very appropriate for this mighty tree that in one instance at least did the thing Bryan would be pleased to do for our nation." 

Note: Judging from the 1916 description, the proposed Bryan Tree may have been one of the Three Sisters which eventually became known as the Fallen Sister within the Fremont Group. Another account claims that a proposed Bryan Tree stood close to the Roosevelt Tree.

Sources: “Trip to the Panama-Pacific Exposition,” Union Times [Union, South Carolina], Weekly Edition, November 29, 1917; “Daughter Visits ‘Peace’ Tree Dedicated on Moore Estate in 1915 by William Jennings Bryan,” Santa Cruz Sentinel, April 5, 1942; “Celebrity Visitors at Big Trees,” by Traci Bliss and Randall Brown in Redwood Logging and Conservation in the Santa Cruz Mountains – A Split History, 2014; “Tres Ojos de Agua – Westside Santa Cruz’s Original Spanish Land Grant,” at http://tresojosdeagua.com; "California Big Trees Visited," Mahoning Dispatch [Canfield, Ohio], June 30, 1916, 8:3-4; “Seeing the West,” A series of letters written by Albert Gustafson telling of sights seen on a trip to the Pacific Coast. Randolph Enterprise, [Randolph, Kansas], April 20, 1916, 7:1.

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