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Dorothy Copus Brush Buckeye means a lot to me and Ohio Little things do mean a lot. That thought
comes to mind each time I look at the buckeye nestled among the
mess on my desk. There were some lovely floral arrangements at
my mother's memorial service, but one had special meaning. It
had been arranged and delivered to the church by a woman about
my age; a woman I had known from our earliest childhood. Her
family, like mine, had lived in our small rural community from
the time it began. After the service she took me to the vase
filled with seasonal flowers and explained where each blossom
had been picked. Some were from her flower garden and others
from her brother's gardens. Her whole family was represented
and each name brought back memories. Tucked in among the flowers
were two buckeyes still encased in their prickly covering. She
explained one was for my sister and one for me to take back to
our Arizona and Tennessee homes as a reminder that we would always
be from the Buckeye State. Several days ago the pod broke open and exposed
the shiny brown fruit with the eye of the buck in plain sight.
Pioneer historians say Ohio became the Buckeye State as early
as 1788 when the first court in the Northwest Territory was opened
in Marietta. On that occasion the high sheriff, Col. Ebenezer
Sproat, led an imposing procession to court. Sproat was a large
man and made a commanding impression as he marched forward with
drawn sword. To the watching Indians this was a person
to be admired and they gave him the nickname "Hetuck"
which was their name for the eye of the buck deer. The name caught
on and he was called "Big Buckeye" by all. It was true that the land destined to become
Ohio boasted a large number of buckeye trees which were native
there. The distinctive seed's proper classification is a fruit,
but it was mistakenly often called a nut. The tree has an unpleasant
odor and was sometimes called the fetid buckeye. Because of this
and the false belief that the fruit poisoned stock animals, many
buckeye trees were destroyed. It took a presidential campaign for Ohio to
become known as the Buckeye State and Ohioans to be called Buckeyes.
General William Henry Harrison, a native of Virginia but an Ohioan
by choice, had served Gen. Anthony Wayne as his aide-de-camp
during the Indian Wars along the Miami River. He met his future
wife during this time. She was the daughter of John Cleves Symmes,
an important figure in the development of southwestern Ohio. Many years later when Gen. Harrison retired
from public life he moved to his farm near Cincinnati. To supplement
his small income from the farm, he was serving as a county recorder
when he was catapulted into the race for the presidency. Then, as now, politics can be dirty, and his
opponents made a serious mistake when they stated contemptuously
that if the general were given a pension he would be happy to
spend the rest of his life living in a log cabin, drinking hard
cider. Harrison's advisors turned the jeers into a successful
campaign tactic. Buckeye cabins and buckeye walking sticks became
the emblems all during the 1840 campaign, and Harrison became
the first Ohio citizen to win the highest office in the land.
The buckeye was forever thereafter associated with Ohio. Even
though the state and citizens were called Buckeyes from that
time on, the state legislature did not adopt the buckeye as the
official state tree until 1953. Yes, little things mean a lot. In this case a small buckeye added a lot of history. |