Murfreesboro, TN - A 176-year span of time ended on the east side of the Rutherford County Courthouse shortly before 10:00AM Wednesday (11/6/2024) morning. County Mayor Joe Carr solemnly said, “All living things have a life cycle, its Alpha and Omega.”
The community got together in front of the courthouse and beside the final surviving sycamore.
Rutherford Couty’s Historian Greg Tucker told the gathering, “The courthouse tree was planted around 1850 by Alfred, Isaac, and Austin Miller. In fact, four trees were planted, one on each side of the structure. Unfortunately, three died. They were replaced by three poplars that also didn’t live.”
They came from the West Fork of the Stones River on the family’s 2,000-acre plantation that was approximately three and a half miles from the courthouse.”
Tucker explained, “Only the tree on the southeast corner survives, and serves to remind us of the length and breathe of our community history.”
In addition, Eddie Miller represented the family and shared personal memories of the tree and how it has had a positive.
Rutherford County Historical Society’s President Pettus Read commented, “It’s bound to be the community’s largest sycamore—the circumference at four feet up the trunk is sixteen and one-half feet.”
WGNS’ Bart Walker mused what the tree would divulge of what it has witnessed over its 176 years. This was taken from guests telling about things that happened under the limbs of the giant sycamore during the 40-plus years of the radio station’s morning show.
That included Nathan Bedford Forrest’s raid, the time a destitute traveler collected money from a gathering crowd. The Human Fly vowed to climb up the courthouse wall to the top of the cupola. It began to rain on his descent, and he fell 50-feet to his death. He was never identified and the Human Fly is buried in an unmarked grave in the Evergreen Cemetery.
Walker told how the old sycamore witnessed General Douglas MacArthur’s whirlwind tour of Murfreesboro in 1951, just days after President Truman relieved him of his World War II command of the Southwest Pacific Theater. Hours earlier in New York he gave his “Old soldiers never die, they just fade away” speech, when he, his wife—Jean Marie Faircloth from Murfreesboro and son Arthur toured her hometown. The faithful old sycamore witness all of the excitement of that day.
The sycamore also Herschell and his son Charlie Mullins making an almost daily trek to the courthouse cupola to adjust and maintain the clock. That old timepiece is on display in the Rutherford County Museum that’s in the courthouse.
Conversation included County Executive John Mankin’s war on pigeons at the courthouse and how they nested in the cupola and even the sycamore.
County Historian Tucker paraphrased Joyce Kilmer, “Speeches are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree.”
Then the helmeted crew from Davey Tree Service, fired-up their gear and began dismantling the giant sycamore. By lunch time, 175-years was reduced to just a memory.
