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Ormond Beach
Real Estate and The Florida Lifestyle

DAYTONA BEACH - The lore behind a live oak tree at city hall that may soon be cut down came alive last week thanks to one local historian. Harold D. Cardwell Sr., 82, a lifelong resident of the area and author of 13 local history books, related the history of the tree, known as the Thoburn Oak, to the Beautification and Tree Advisory Board.

The city's consulting arborist, Tom Griffiths, recently proposed removing the Thoburn Oak and another live oak tree from city hall grounds because they are ill and pose a danger to the many pedestrians who pass under them each day.

In August, the advisory board asked the city to hire another expert for a second opinion. As of press time, that expert, Todd Antalek, a certified arborist with Arbor Care Services, had not released his report.

Mr. Cardwell has a long history with the tree.

In 1975, Mr. Cardwell, then a landscape architect, assessed the tree for Dr. Robert Thoburn, a dentist who owned the property on which the tree grows. Before selling his property to the city for a city hall expansion, Dr. Thoburn wanted to include the value of the historic tree, which Mr. Cardwell said then was in pristine shape.

At the time, Mr. Cardwell aged the tree at 240 years old and valued it at $75,000. Today the value of the 270-year-old tree, which is marked by a plaque placed in 1982 as "the oldest living oak tree in Daytona Beach," would be twice that, he said. Its historical value, though, is priceless.

"Daytona has had many changes over time, but the tree has always been there," Mr. Cardwell said. The tree dates back to the original forest that covered the area in the 18th century and it served as the boundary marker on the properties of some of the city's most prominent forefathers, Mr. Cardwell said.

Samuel Williams, the first plantation owner in the area, used the live oak to mark the edge of his orange groves in the early 1800s, and when Daytona Beach founder Matthias Day laid out the city in the late 1800s, he routed some of its main arteries, the predecessors of Orange Avenue and S. Ridgewood Avenue, around the tree.

Based on citizen concern for the historic trees and an initial report from Mr. Antalek, the arborist, city grounds maintenance manager Brad Iseneker said he was "hopeful we don't have to take the trees down" and that they could be saved through selective pruning and vitamin injections. A final report should be presented to the advisory board at its meeting at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 7. Based on the trees' size and their "historic association," the city commission would have to vote to remove the trees based on the city's land development code, advisory board chairman Chris Daun said.

Mr. Cardwell said that might not be necessary.

Because live oaks can live to be about 500 years old, the Thoburn Oak may be salvageable. But, he stressed, it'll take a dedication to the trees that the city has not demonstrated in recent years.

"It's bad. It's been destructed by neglect, lightening, the roots being pushed by the sidewalk and building. It could have been root-fed and pruned, but nothing's been done to it," Mr. Cardwell said. "A tree is like everything else: a certain amount of care is required."

By Bethany Chambers Staff writer
Hometown News - http://www.myhometownnews.net/index.php?id=49159