Dorothy Brush "Random Thoughts" Published March 10, 2004

The story of Mr. Morton

Mention salt and Morton pops into mind. Mention Arbor Day and trees come to mind, but the person responsible for that great movement was a Morton, the proud father of the two sons in the salt business. Tennessee's Arbor Day is always celebrated on the first Friday in March, and last Friday the Crossville Tree Board remembered the day by giving away free tree seedlings. Cooperating with them was the Tennessee Forestry Division, the Cumberland County Forestry Association and Master Gardeners.

For Charles Daugherty, a tree board member, this was his third year to take part in the giveaway and this year was unlike any of the others. Earlier on Arbor Day, the helpers stood around waiting for people to take advantage of the freebies, and one year they sent many leftovers to other counties. Not this year. At the appointed hour people were lined up waiting and 4,000 seedlings were gone in 40 minutes. With the stunning success of this year, Daugherty said, "We're going to have to make it last longer next year."

Every state has its own date for Arbor Day, but it all started in Nebraska because of Julius Sterling Morton, but he used only the initial "J." He was born in the state of New York in 1832, but at two, his family moved to Monroe, MI. He grew up there, attended college and worked as a reporter for the Detroit Free Press.

Politics interested him and when the Kansas-Nebraska bill was passed in 1854, he thought the territory would gain statehood eventually and the place held promise for a young politician. On October 30, 1854 he married the girl who had been his sweetheart from the time he was 15. The wedding was in Detroit and that very day the couple left for the Nebraska territory.

They lived in a log cabin in Bellevue, NE for a year and then moved farther south to Nebraska City. Morton was editor of the newspaper there. This was prairie country, void of trees. The couple bought 160 acres of land and built a four-room frame house said to be the only frame house between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River. Once the house was done, they started planting shrubs and trees, and by 1858 greenery and an apple orchard surrounded them.

Morton used the newspaper to urge settlers to plant trees and orchards across the state. In 1872, he offered a resolution to the State Board of Agriculture to establish a tree planting day. The first state Arbor Day was held in Nebraska April 10, 1872 and on that day over one million trees were planted across the state. In 1874, Arbor Day was made an annual event in the state. Tennessee was not far behind and in 1875, they were one of the first states to adopt the idea.

Within two decades the idea was picked up by all the states and even some foreign countries. In 1882 Cincinnati, Ohio was the first to have school children take part in planting trees on Arbor Day. Soon the practice was adopted by schools nationwide.

J. Sterling Morton, pioneer statesman and founder of Arbor Day, held many political offices during his lifetime including Secretary of Agriculture during President Grover Cleveland's second term. After his death in 1902, his influence lived on and Nebraska City became the home of the National Arbor Day Foundation.

The original four-room frame home went through four enlargements and additions and stands in Arbor Lodge State Historical Park. Called Arbor Lodge, it is a stately 52-room, neo-colonial mansion open to public tours. There are also formal gardens, orchards, historic barns and a new large educational complex with staff and programs dedicated to tree planting and conservation.

In the nation's capital, J. Sterling Morton's statue stands in the Hall of Fame. A like statue stands in Nebraska City and was financed by the pennies, nickels and dimes contributed by school children from around the world.

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Dorothy Copus Brush is a Fairfield Glade resident and Crossville Chronicle staffwriter whose column is published each Wednesday.