The General Sherman Tree: First Encounters

This Old Tree with Doug Still
The General Sherman Tree: First Encounters - Transcript
Season 3, Episode 3
October 27, 2025

Doug Still  00:00
You're listening to This Old Tree, the show about heritage trees and the human stories behind them. I'm Doug Still. 

[sound of feet walking on icy snow]
Holy moly. Look at that. Unbelievable……

[guitar music]

Doug Still  00:34
Yes, that was me last March, turning the corner on an icy path as the General Sherman tree came into view. It's a giant sequoia in Sequoia National Park in California, and it happens to be the largest tree in the world by volume. A park ranger might tell you it's as high as a 28 story building and as wide as a swimming pool. There are other giant sequoias nearby too, in a magnificent grove called the “Giant Forest.” Possibly two million people visit every year. 

Seeing the tree in person is an awe inspiring experience, especially the first time. I couldn't help wondering, who were the first people to lay eyes on the Giant Forest? What stories live on about when they turn that proverbial corner into this very special place on Earth? 

To find the history, I interviewed William C. Tweed, the retired Chief Naturalist who has spent more than 40 years researching, speaking, and writing about the giant sequoias. As he says, the trees and their stories tell us as much about us and how we view nature as they do about the sequoias themselves. We'll get introduced to some giant sequoia biology along the way. 

[theme music]

So come along to hear about the General Sherman tree. I'm Doug still, and this is This Old Tree.

[dreamy music]

Doug Still  02:35
The drive toward the entrance of Sequoia National Park is kind of like an early scene from the movie King Kong. At least, that was the feeling I had after I left my hotel in the small city of Visalia and motored east across the flat San Joaquin Valley. Miles and miles of orange trees framed my view, their branches sagging with fruit, oranges littering the ground. (It was astonishing really, as an easterner I had to pull over and snap some pictures of the citrus groves). But on the horizon, rising like an insurmountable, green wall with snow on top, was the Sierra Nevada mountain range. I thought, “I’m heading up there, because up there is where the giant sequoias are.” It reminded me of King Kong, when the ship anchors off an island the bad guys want to exploit. The camera scans the imposing landscape from afar, and with anticipation the audience knows there’s a giant ape in there that’s going to astound them, and cause these dudes trouble when they mess with him. 

My journey was a bit less dramatic, but the feeling was the same, because the star attraction up in the mountains before me was the wonderful old Kong of trees, the General Sherman Tree. 

The plains gave way to foothills, and a curvy drive around Lake Kaweah. I passed seasonal lodges and tourist stops in the town of Three Rivers, then followed the Kaweah River gradually upward. I eventually pulled alongside the park entrance station to pay my fee. Several hundred yards ahead was a scenic pulloff that contains the iconic wooden Sequoia National Park sign from 1935. It displays the image of a generic American Indian face but not a local one, a stereotype which the park acknowledges. Park history is complicated and not always flattering. But the early history of human interaction with giant sequoias is also inspirational, leading the way toward a national conservation ethic. It’s an American story worth telling.

I could think of no one better to talk to about the General Sherman Tree and the giant sequoias than William C. Tweed. Tweed, as he signs his emails, is the author of King Sequoia: The Tree That Inspired a Nation, Created Our National Park System, and Changed the Way We Think of Nature. While with the National Park Service, he also co-wrote the seminal history of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks called Challenge of the Big Trees. Regarding the General Sherman tree itself, perhaps no one has spent more hours standing next to it than William Tweed as a young park ranger, describing it to countless visitors every summer.

(to William C. Tweed)
William, welcome. Thank you so much for joining me today to talk about the incredible General Sherman tree and Giant Sequoias in general, I've enjoyed reading your books so much, especially King Sequoia. It's full of great and well researched true stories about the discovery of the Giant Sequoias by European settlers. And you also describe how these big trees shift the way Americans think about nature, which is part of the book's title, I'd say, not only in the late 19th and early early 20th century, but even now. So thank you for writing

William C. Tweed  06:13
it. Well, every author is happy when his book gets read. So thank you for reading it. There's so much good material about giant sequoias that we have lots to talk about today.

Doug Still  06:24
Where does the title King Sequoia come from?  

William C. Tweed  06:29
King Sequoia? I stole it. All good titles are stolen, right? I stole it from John Muir. Muir wrote a great deal about sequoias. He was quite enamored of sequoia trees, as many have been since. And I saw that in one of his early writings, and I said, “How could I not use that?” That's the key. It's just the perfect phrase to grab attention about giant sequoia trees. He used it, and I stole it, and I happily attribute it to Muir.

Doug Still  06:53
Let's start, let's describe the location and setting for listeners around the country and from around the world who have never had the chance to visit Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. Where is this particular grove of giant sequoias? And ecologically, why are they there?

William C. Tweed  07:14
That's a big question, and let's try to focus on it in an intelligent way. The giant sequoia trees naturally are found only in the southern Sierra or Sierra Nevada of California. Sierra Nevada is a big mountain range. It rises from almost sea level at the west to over 14,000 feet. The highest point in the 48 states is in the Sierra Nevada. In fact, it's in Sequoia Park - Mount Whitney, 14,500 feet. It has within it, as you'd expect for a mountain range of that height, an enormous variety of environments. The Giant Sequoias occupy a portion of one of those environments. As you go up in the Sierra, it cools off, it gets wetter. The difference between the bottom and the top is astounding. If you're talking sea level, the bottom is in the deserts of the southwest and the north - the top of the Sierras in Alaska - it's tundra. 

Everything in between is in the Sierra, and the giant sequoias are part of a belt of huge trees besides sequoias that grow between about five and 8000 feet in the Sierra. We tend to call it a mixed conifer forest, because it has a dozen different species of trees. All of them grow big in one way or another, but within that, in certain places, are giant sequoia trees. We call these places groves. There's no single definition. It sort of comes down to the fact that a grove is a place with sequoias surrounded by country where there's not sequoias. And there are, roughly, you could argue about whether you lump or split, about 75 groves. There are about a dozen really big groves, and the giant forest is one of the bigger grows, not the biggest by acreage, not the biggest by the number of sequoia trees, but it is the most significant in terms of what makes sequoias special, which is, of course, size. Giant sequoias are bigger in the Giant Forest than anywhere else, and out of the top 10 trees, half of that top 10 are in the Giant Forest. It's the special place, and the biggest of them all is the General Sherman tree. 

Why are they there? You asked a big question. I got to give you a couple pieces to this. Why are they there? Sequoias have interesting needs. Every plant has certain needs, and so sequoias are not unique in that at all. But you have to understand a plant. You have to understand what it's looking for. Judging from the limited range of the giant sequoia, you have to assume that it has some rather specific needs, and it certainly does. It needs lots of moisture. It's a water loving tree. Of the Sierra and conifers, it is the most water dependent. Needs more water than any other tree. It also needs lots of sunshine, because that's where the energy comes to grow really big things. And additionally, it doesn't like cold. Now you're going to say you visited the trees in the snow. This is a maritime mountain range. You know, you work out of Rhode Island, and once in a while, the wind blows from the northwest, right? And it gets really cold. The Sierra doesn't do that. The Sierra is a maritime mountain range, and so it snows a lot, but it snows a lot around the freezing point in the range where the trees grow. So it's not a cold place - it may feel cold, but it's not a cold place in the biological sense. So the Sierra is the place for giant sequoia trees. The foothills and the lowlands are too dry, the upper altitudes are too cold, but in between, there's a zone that is use the old cliche just right.

Doug Still  11:10
Now they're mainly on the western slopes, right? Or the western side of the mountains. Why is that?

William C. Tweed  11:16
The Sierra is a rain shadow, a rain shadow mountain range. The water comes from the west, from the ocean, and it hits the Sierra Nevada. When you have a mountain range as high as the Sierra, it takes an enormous amount of water out of the sky. It's no accident that the 500 miles east of the Sierra Nevada constitute the driest place, the driest state in the United States, Nevada. Nevada is the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada. Lless than 100 miles due east of Mount Whitney, is Death Valley, the driest place in the United States. [Amazing.] They are perfectly connected in the sense of weather and topography.

Doug Still  12:02
So, some basic biology. Why are they so big, and how do they live so long?

William C. Tweed  12:09
Why are they so big and old? I'll give you an interpretation I worked out in my many years as a park ranger. Every living organism from the biological point of view, has a goal, and that goal is to have its genes survive. The things, the organisms whose genes do not survive are not here. They're gone, they're dead. They're extinct, if they ever existed at all. Everything has to survive. Every organism has built into it some strategy for survival. 

I propose that to understand giant sequoia trees, you need to contrast them with mosquitoes, [okay] and my contrast sounds something like this. Among this one strategy for survival is to be small and fragile and no deposit, no return, a throwaway organism that you produce in enormous numbers: mosquitoes. We spent a lot of time trying to get rid of mosquitoes. We’re never fully surprised - how much damage do you do to this mosquito species when you destroy a mosquito? None whatsoever, right? I think you can tell where I am going. The sequoia is the extreme opposite example. It is this huge, is an organism with a huge investment in a single tree. You build it for a couple of 1000 years. It's designed, as we'll explore, to survive all these different challenges. So it's as far from no deposit, no return as you can get in the biological world. It's a highly, long lived, slowly reproducing, heavily armored organism.

Doug Still  14:01
But with the same same ultimate goal as a mosquito, which is to reproduce.

William C. Tweed  14:06
Yes, to survive. It's all about survival. How does the tree achieve survival? Now we get down to its specific adaptations. The sequoia has a number of adaptations that work very well in its native range. And to understand them, you have to understand what kills trees. Besides people, we look at what naturally kills trees. The biggest flaw with trees in most species is that, as you know so well, in almost all traditional tree species only the couple inches beneath the bark is truly alive in terms of wood, right? I have sapwood and heartwood. And the longer a tree lives, the more dead heartwood it accumulates, because the tree keeps putting on new layers of live wood just beneath the bark. It's putting on new bark, pushing it outward, too at the same time. And so if a tree is going to live a long time, it's going to accumulate a great deal of dead heartwood. And dead heartwood is subject to decay. And when a tree decays enough, it loses its structural integrity and it collapses. 

So how do you prevent Heartwood from decaying? Giant sequoias have mastered that art. There are only a couple basic solutions. I used to say you could look in your kitchen and come up with most of them, because the challenge of the decay of organic material is what we face every day in our kitchens. We don't want our food to rot, and so we do primarily three different things: we refrigerate it, or we dry it, or we treat it with chemicals, and that's how we prevent organic material from decay. And the giant sequoia has pondered, in its own animate way, all of those options, and settles mostly on, guess what? Chemicals. 

The chemicals are called tannins. They are strong decay preventatives. They're organic acids. They are found in a number of trees, but in no trees, more obviously than in giant sequoias. And so tannins are found throughout the world. The giant sequoia literally manufactures so much tannin that it pickles its heartwood in tannin interestingly, and it makes the wood very decay resistant. But the primary thing a giant sequoia does is its center does not decay. 

If the center does not decay, then what about those other things that get trees? Insects get trees, but the sequoia, the tannins the sequoia uses are also pretty good insect repellents. And so sequoias are seldom - not never - but they are seldom killed and even seldom damaged to a significant degree by insects. It's rare. 

And then, of course, you come to the issue of fire. Giant sequoias grow best in a Mediterranean climate at altitude. Mediterranean means wet winters and dry summers. The second part of the summer is very dry, and there's usually little or no precipitatio, and that leads to fire. And the giant sequoias have long since learned, over a very long period, to live with and survive fire. And they are not fire proof, they're made of wood. But after all, they are highly fire resistant. They have a thick bark with tannin that does not burn very well, and the hardwood is full of tannin, which does not burn very well. We understand from a lot of scientific study that the average giant sequoia tree, including our General Sherman, prior to the arrival of Euro Americans in the groves, probably was exposed to fire every 10, 15, or 20 years over and over and over again. That implies, by the way, that the fires were not terribly intense, because if you burn that often, there's not an enormous amount to burn.

Doug Still  18:11
Lower level ground fires.

William C. Tweed  18:13
Lower level ground fires usually, and the average mature sequoia tree may have been through 100 fires, 200 fires. We have cross sections that will show fire scars of dozens and dozens and dozens of fires, inspecting a single tree, and the tree goes right on growing. 

One more piece to this puzzle, the giant sequoia is a sun loving tree. Again, as an arborist, you know very well, some trees, some plants, are shade tolerant, some are not. The giant sequoia is not shade tolerant to any degree at all. It's a huge challenge in its youth, and therefore it has one more critical trait. It grows as tall as it can, as fast as it can when it's young. It often grows, once it gets established, a foot or two every year for a couple centuries. When you grow at that rate, you get pretty tall, pretty fast. There are lots of giant sequoia trees between one and two centuries old that are between 100-200 feet tall. There's no need to be infinitely tall. And there are disadvantages to being infinitely tall after a certain point, it's just trouble. What you do need to do to be a long lived tree is to get above everything else, which - that's exactly what they do. And then here you are. Here's how a giant sequoia tree reaches longevity. And if you are long lived and fast growing, you end up being big.

Doug Still  19:50
Right, right, but you have to have the right conditions in order to meet all of those requirements.

William C. Tweed  19:55
Exactly. All those are reflected, are adaptations to a particular environment, and so the sequoia does very well in its home setting.

Doug Still  20:05
The last Ice Age drastically reduced the range of the giant sequoias. But in this perfect location, high up on the western side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the General Sherman tree has thrived for an estimated 2,200 years, not an easy place for people to get to or to live. 

We're going to take a short break. When we come back, we'll look at what we know about the first peoples to know the biggest tree in the world and the Giant Grove: two indigenous tribes called the Monache and the Yokuts. Then we'll meet the first recorded white settler to venture into the Giant Grove. Not a forester, trapper or prospector, but strangely enough, a rancher. What was he doing up there? 

[theme music]

You're listening to This Old Tree.

Doug Still  21:02
I asked William about the earliest human interactions with the giant sequoias, and he made it clear that their “discovery” depends entirely on who you are talking about. 

William C. Tweed  21:15
Of course, we have to say the obvious. When we're talking “discovery,” we're talking about discovery by Euro Americans, not the people who had lived there in and amongst the trees for 1,000s of years. We wish we knew more. Those people still exist. But we don't have good sequoia trees from the local Native American - good sequoia stories, I should say, from the local Native American peoples. We know that the Yokuts and Monache people who lived there saw all and still see all the different life forms as animate objects, fellow occupants on this earth, an attitude we could do well to understand more completely, I think, and maybe absorb a little more completely.

Doug Still  21:55
While indigenous stories about sequoias are few, William includes an excellent chapter about Native Americans living in the lower Sierra Nevada mountains prior to Euro-American arrival in his book Challenge of the Big Trees. So, the following summary is entirely from his book and is his work. I find it so interesting and important. 

Archaeological evidence is limited, by the early 1800s it’s clear that two distinct groups inhabited this region, which he mentioned. The Monache, or Western Mono, occupied territory from the high mountains down to the western foothills. Below them lived the Yokuts, who made their home in the lower foothills and across the entire Central Valley. They spoke very different languages. Today, descendents of these tribes live on the federally recognized Tule River Reservation in Tulare County, made up of Yokuts, Yowlumne, Wukchumni, Western Mono, and Tübatulabal. And forgive my pronunciations.

Here's where it gets interesting: the Monache language closely resembles that of the Owens Valley Paiute, also called Eastern Mono, who are from the desert east of the Sierra Nevada. These desert dwellers survived on gathered seeds, fish, and game. They ventured into the eastern slopes of the Sierra to find one particularly crucial food, pinyon pine nuts. The mountains also provided an escape from the brutal desert heat.

A few Eastern Mono groups eventually began wintering on the west side of the mountains. The exact reason is lost to history, but they maintained their traditional pattern—encamping at lower elevations during winter, but venturing into higher altitudes during summer when the snow melted. Importantly, they didn't displace the more numerous Yokuts. Instead, they established a line of winter villages along the middle slopes, some within the current area of Sequoia National Park.

This westward move brought dietary changes. Acorn meal from various oak species, especially black oak, replaced pinyon nuts as the staple food. By the time Europeans arrived, the Western Mono had organized into about six bands, three of which—the Wobonuch, Wuksachi, and Potwisha—lived in what's now Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park.

The Potwisha became the best-known band in the region. Their largest village was Hospital Rock, situated at 2,700 feet along the Kaweah River's middle fork. It was ideally positioned among oaks and rivers. A natural cave beneath a boulder provided additional shelter. Trade flourished up in the mountains along traditional foot paths connecting East and West Mono. They traded goods with the Yokuts as well. 

Perhaps most significantly for our understanding of wilderness, these peoples actively altered the landscape through burning. They used fire to encourage game forage, promote valuable plant growth, and increase visibility. Ironically, these frequent fires benefitted the giant sequoias themselves. William astutely writes that when Europeans first arrived, they assumed they saw a virgin, primeval landscape. What they were actually viewing was an ecosystem influenced by humans, people who considered themselves inseparable from the natural world.

I’m projecting, but I don’t think it’s out of reach to picture the East and West Monache meeting in summer, high up in the Sierra within the shade of the great giant sequoia groves. At the very least, the big trees would be waypoints for their journey. And what a journey it is, here’s more of what I found.

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Doug Still  25:59
The drive up into the mountains from the Foothills Visitors Center was spectacular. Luckily the main road - General’s Highway - was open despite the snow up at higher elevation. Only a couple major trails were open. I picked an iffy time to visit. The park ranger suggested hikers wear cleats on their shoes, which I laughed off. There was no snow where we were. I shouldn’t have, more on that later.

Starting at 1,700 feet, the road soon became a series of curves and switchbacks. With wonder at the surroundings, I took the steep climb slowly. In the off-season not too many cars stacked up behind me. Generally, I drive like a grandpa anyway, I’m told. Western redbuds were blooming, and I pulled over at a couple scenic overlooks to take pictures of the dramatic landscape. Green forested valleys with intermittent meadows foregrounded rising mountain tops and granite domes. It was worth the price of admission right there, and I was only just entering the vast, 1,300 square miles that make up Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, the largest contiguous wilderness in the lower 48 states. 

By the time I approached 5,000 feet, things began to change. There was snow on the ground. The composition of the forest shifted to conifers. No sequoias yet, but I started seeing swaths of burned trees. Acres and acres of dead trees on both sides of the road. This was a result of the 2021 KNP Complex Fire, when two separate fires - the Paradise and Colony fires - combined to burn 88,000 acres over a three month period. It was a severe fire, not a low level ground fire like William Tweed talked about. It was sparked by a lightning strike - yes - but it turned into an inferno as a result of high winds, a year of record-breaking drought, and the buildup of fuel on the forest floor due to 120 years of fire suppression. It reached the western edge of the Giant Grove, but the Grove itself was spared thanks to extra efforts by firefighters. Worried park managers even wrapped the base of the General Sherman tree in protective foil, along with a number of the other largest trees. 

After driving through the worst of the forest fire zone, I started seeing the giant sequoias. Oh my god, you cannot mistake them. The trunks were massive cylinders among their more pole-like companion species - white fir, sugar pine, incense cedar, red fir, and ponderosa pine. The warm, reddish-brown bark really stood out against the snow. These here on the outskirts of the Giant Grove were affected by the fires. Some were killed. Others lived, but sported black, archway shaped burn marks at their bases. Treacherously, I pulled over and snapped a few photos of these first sequoias. I continued on, past four huge trees all in a row and framing the road. They had singe marks on them too. These were the “Four Guardsmen” sequoias that form a natural entranceway into the Giant Grove. I drove on through.      

William C. Tweed  29:32
But the story of our own people in these forests begins like so many stories in California, with the gold rush. When California went from being a colonial backwater with a handful of Europeans along the coast to a destination being literally inundated with immigrants from all over the world. You know, in the early 1850s a couple 100,000 people invaded California, looking for immediate, instant wealth. And they wandered all over the landscape seeing what they could find. They were looking for gold, but not only for gold, because the world of gold mining generated a need for foodstuffs and lumber and all the rest of that what we need to live, right? So everybody was trying to make a living in California and get rich as fast as they could. People scattered across the state and explored it very quickly. 

The region that now is Sequoia National Park, the western half of the park is the watershed of the Kaweah River, and the first Euro American to enter the Kaweah River was a fellow named Hale Tharp. He arrived in the middle 1850s. He quickly connected with the local people, the Yokuts and Monaches of the foothills, particularly the Monaches. They told him about the huge forests up on the mountains above where he settled, and he intended to be and become a cattle rancher. He was growing basically beef to feed the growing cities and mining towns of California, everything from San Francisco to Angels Camp. All the places where the new California was suddenly blossoming out of nowhere, a lot of hungry people. 

So cattle ranching was how it started. Tharp, however, discovered the truism of the southern Sierra Nevada, that is in the summer the low country gets very hot and dry. And that up in the mountains at altitude - remember, I was talking about life zones and all that - it gets cooler and wetter as you go up. There were summer pastures in the mountains, and that's what took him up. The Native Americans guided him, and he discovered in - this was in 1856 - he was taken for the first time up to, from almost from a couple 100 feet altitude, up to 6000 feet to the Giant Forest. And he discovered big green meadows and around them, incidentally, big red trees. 

He was curious about the big trees, but he was trying to make a living as a cattle rancher. And he began in the next few years taking cattle up and grazed the area. Well, Tharpe and his descendants were in the Giant Forest up until about 1920, even after the park was established. They took control of the meadows. And so that was how the story starts. And the first use of the giant forest was as cow pasture.

Doug Still  32:33
Hale Tharp gave a first person account of his early years in the area to a park ranger named Walter Fry in 1910, who wrote it all down. Fry later became Park Magistrate and published his conversation with Tharp in a park bulletin in 1924 and 25. The words you're about to hear are those of Hale Tharp conveyed by Walter Fry.

Hale Tharp reading  33:01
"I made my first trip to the Hospital Rock camp during the summer of 1858. Chief Chappo and I had become the very best of friends and he asked me to come up and stay with him overnight. He sent down two young Indian men to pilot me in, as there were no trails in the country, just Indian foot-paths.  I went in on horse-back and it took me about 8 hours to work my way in, the distance being about 18 miles from my Three Rivers ranch. When I arrived at the camp, Chappo and his men extended me a cordial welcome and gave me the best his camp afforded. He called out every individual in the camp and with much dignity and long ceremony introduced me to all. There were over 600 Indians then living at the camp. My arrival at the camp excited the curiosity of most of the Indians, as I was the first white person that had ever visited their camp, and only a few of their leaders had ever seen a white person before. As for myself, I did not attract half so much attention as did my horse and saddle, my weapons, and the clothing that I wore. These were all new to most of the Indians, for they had never seen such things before.

"Accompanied by two Indians, I made my first trip into the Giant Forest during the summer of 1858. We went in by the way of the Middle Fork and Moro Rock and camped a few days at Log Meadow, after which we came out by the same route that we went in. I do not remember the dates that we were there, but I carved with my knife on the big hollow redwood log my name and the date on the same day that we got there. These figures and my name should still show. When we arrived at Log Meadow there were a great many deer and a few bear in the meadow, which paid but little attention to us other than through curiosity. The deer came all around our camp and looked at us, and some of the bears sat upright in order to get a good look at us. I shot a small buck for camp meat·. This shot did not seem to' frighten the other deer or any of the bears. I had two objects in making this trip. One was for the purpose of locating a high summer range for my stock; and the other was due to the fact that stories the Indians had told me of the "Big Tree" forest caused me to wonder, so I decided to go and see.

“By the spring of 1862 quite a number of whites had settled in the Three Rivers section, and the Indians were gradually forced out. Then, too, the Indians had contracted contagious diseases from the whites, such as measles, scarlet fever and smallpox and they died off by the hundreds. I helped to bury 27 in one day up on the Sam Kelly place. About this time Chief Chappo and some of his men came to see me and asked me to try and stop the whites from coming into their country.  When I said that was impossible, they all sat down and cried. They told me that their people loved this country, did not want to leave it , and knew not where to go. A few days later Chappo came to me with tears in his eyes and told me that they had decided not to fight the whites, but would leave the country. From that time on, they moved out bit by bit and from time to time, until all were gone. I think by the summer of 1865 the Indians had left the district. The Hospital Rock camp was the last vacated, and they left it clean as a ribbon. For a few years after they left one or two of the Indians would occasionally drift in for just a short while; but this practice soon ceased, and I gradually lost track of them.”

William C. Tweed  36:42
I think we could - another good story about the early days of the Giant Forest. The first person really to look at the Giant Forest from a biological point of view came in 1875 he was a wandering Scot, still fairly new in his time in California. He'd only been in California since 1868 or nine, when he'd come from Wisconsin and born again, as I said, in Scotland, a guy named John Muir. Not the famous John Muir we remember, but a fairly young John Muir, still getting started making his mark in the world. He was living in Yosemite by this time, making a living as a guide and newspaper writer, a correspondent in the sense when newspaper correspondents used to correspond at distance. And he became curious about the giant sequoia trees, the King Sequoia tree. 

He knew them because some of them grow up as far north as Yosemite. And he set off in the summer of 1875 on a wildly adventuresome hike. He decided he would see how far the sequoias went to the south and where they were located. He's going north to south. He's going up over mountains and down through canyons and up over mountains, trying to find, between the canyons, the groves of big trees, the groves of giant sequoia trees. And in that way, in the fall of 1875 he wanders into Giant Forest, and he describes it at some length in the book Our National Parks. And he discovered the three superlative groves, the Converse Basin, the Giant Forest and the one we now call Mountain Home. They were the biggest groves with the most large trees. But the point is, Muir discovered them and understood for the first time that the southern Sierra was the place for giant sequoia trees. They did better there - grew in larger groves, larger individuals, than any place else in the Sierra. And of course, they grew, at that point, nowhere else in the world at all, except in the Sierra Nevada.

Doug Still  38:45
Here's John Muir.

John Muir reading  38:47
Hence down into the main Kings River cañon, a mile deep, I led and dragged and shoved my patient, much-enduring mule through miles and miles of gardens and brush, fording innumerable streams, crossing savage rock slopes and taluses, scrambling, sliding through gulches and gorges, then up into the grand Sequoia forests of the south side, cheered by the royal crowns displayed on the narrow horizon.

Doug Still  39:17
Eventually, he came across a particular grouping of Giant Sequoias that moved him to wax poetic. He named it the giant grove. When

John Muir reading 39:27
When I entered this sublime wilderness the day was nearly done, the trees with rosy, glowing countenances seemed to be hushed and thoughtful, as if waiting in conscious religious dependence on the sun, and one naturally walked softly and awe-stricken among them. I wandered on, meeting nobler trees where all are noble, subdued in the general calm, as if in some vast hall pervaded by the deepest sanctities and solemnities that sway human souls. At sundown the trees seemed to cease their worship and breathe free. I heard . the birds going home. I too sought a home for the night on the edge of a level meadow where there is a long, open view between the evenly ranked trees standing guard along its sides. Then after a good place was found for poor Brownie, who had had a hard, weary day sliding and scrambling across the Marble Canon, I made my bed and supper and lay on my back looking up to the stars through pillared arches finer far than the pious heart of man, telling its love, ever reared. Then I took a walk up the meadow to see the trees in the pale light. They seemed still more marvelously massive and tall than by day, heaving their colossal heads into the depths of the sky, among the stars, some of which appeared to be sparkling on their branches like flowers. I built a big fire that vividly illumined the huge brown boles of the nearest trees and the little plants and cones and fallen leaves at their feet, keeping up the show until I fell asleep to dream of boundless forests and trail-building for Brownie…

Doug Still  41:18
And he had a frame of reference from knowing the sequoias up in the northern Sierra Nevada.

William C. Tweed  41:23
Because he'd already studied the trees in the north, and so he did have that frame of reference. And he wrote about this and as a correspondent in newspapers. And I think it is a very direct connection that within 15 years of Muir's first writings about these places, we see three national parks created in the Sierra Nevada. They are the second, third and fourth national parks in the United States, some of the earliest in the world. And the third, second and fourth national parks in the United States, all preserve giant sequoia trees.

[theme music]

Doug Still  42:06
After a short break, the General Sherman Tree - that Kong of trees, the King Sequoia - starts getting all the attention. This is This Old Tree.

Doug Still  42:24
How did it receive its name?

William C. Tweed  42:26
The question of how the General Sherman tree received the name we call it by today is one that tells us a lot about ourselves. Trees don't care what they're called. Names count for us. We humans love to name things, and the name goes back to the early management of the park. The tree itself probably was not given special notice in the early days that the park was being used by Hale Tharp as a cow pasture. We certainly have no account, no connection directly from Tharp to the Sherman tree. But there is a story that I'll draw some skepticism, I'll draw some question marks around. But the story that was told by the park for many years, and probably is still told by many rangers, goes something like this. 

On the seventh of August, 1879, a cowboy named James Wolverton, who was in the employ of Hale Tharp, discovered what he obviously recognized to be the largest tree in the grove, and named it after the commanding officer he had served under in the American Civil War in the 1860s, General Sherman. And that Wolverton - the guy was named James Wolverton - had been a lieutenant in his army as he invaded the American South and brought the war to a conclusion. 

It's a good story. It still shows up in print to this day. It has been poked at seriously by historians including myself, and I have to say, has largely dissolved into myth. Here are the flaws in the story. I was skeptical from the beginning. Why would a cowboy name a tree on a particular date and it be remembered for decades? It's just too good to be true. Here are some facts. James Wolverton was not in the army that… did not serve under General Sherman, did not take part in the Civil War in the east, or with any other general. He actually served briefly in a volunteer regiment in Nevada in the West, and he was a deserter. He served for a year and deserted, which shows up in the historical record. So much for that story. And there is no record of this. This story of James Wolverton naming the tree does not show up anywhere until, well, supposedly it took place in 1879. The story doesn't show in print until about 1920, which is almost 40 years after the event. And there's no mention of the name in the 1870s or 1880s, the General Sherman tree.

Doug Still  45:12
William mentioned a fringe community that lived among the Giant Sequoias in the 1880s called the Kaweah Colony. It was a socialist group that established itself in 1886, and its members, motivated by ideals of utopian socialism, lived and worked together until the community was disbanded around 1892 after the creation of Sequoia National Park. They called the tree the Karl Marx tree.

William C. Tweed  45:39
So there is a likely second story here, a different way that the Sherman tree got its name. If indeed the first name of the tree was the Karl Marx tree given by the Kaweah colonists - that was the name, and there's no evidence that there's any other use of any other name before the Kaweah colony time or during the Kaweah colony time - then how did it suddenly become General Sherman? And there's a very likely suspect, and that suspect is the United States Army, which began protecting the parks, including Sequoia and General Grant Park next door, in the summer of 1891 and did so for almost a quarter century. When the soldiers arrived, we can imagine that they were not particularly enamored of Karl Marx. 

Doug Still
I imagine not. 

William C. Tweed
But why not name the tree after the man who was not only one of the leading generals of the Civil War, but in the years after the Civil War, was the general of all the armies, the head of the entire war department at that time. And so the name appears without other mention in the 1890s during the first decade of military, I don't say occupation, military protection of the park. That's the key thing. It shows up then.

Doug Still  46:56
So that was already a trend. 

William C. Tweed  47:01
Oh, very much so. For example, the General Grant tree over in Kings Canyon Park had received its name for General Grant in the late 1860s two years after the end of the war. So there was certainly a precedent for this sort of thing.

Doug Still  47:14
What do you think the impulse was to name the trees back then?

William C. Tweed  47:18
I think giant sequoia trees are individuals. You can actually show people who know the forest pictures of trees, and you'll recognize them. But when you look at a monarch Sequoia, you know which one it is. They're individual. 

Doug Still  47:32
And how much do you think this matters? 

William C. Tweed  47:36
Almost none at all. [laughter] Right, the human reaction to the trees is only minimally about the name. The trick to, the other reason to name trees is that it's always been one of the goals of the park to get people out walking the trails. Because we all have always believed in the park that you don't really get to understand the Sequoia forest or appreciate it until you're on foot within the trees, whether you walk, as we used to say, 100 yards or 100 miles, makes no difference. You need to be out of your car and on the ground. And to do that, you need somewhere to go, and therefore it's useful to give you destinations. By naming trees.

Doug Still  48:14
You mentioned a story about the fence being built around the Sherman tree. Could you tell that story?

William C. Tweed  48:21
Yes, the first attempt to protect the General Shermon tree, versus simply name it or look at it or photograph it or appreciate it, came during the army days in a very interesting summer. As I mentioned already, the park was overseen by cavalry troops from 1891 through the summer of 1913 and those troops were rotated every year or two, and they were only here in the summer, only in the park in the summer. And they tended to, they tended to be sort of a nice duty for Army troops. And in 1903 the set of troops that were sent came from the Ninth US Cavalry, which for those who happen to know history will appreciate, was a Black unit. There were two cavalry units and two infantry units within the late 19th, early 20th century army that were staffed entirely… the enlisted men were entirely of Black or Black Americans. They were called Buffalo Soldiers, a name that was given to them by the American Indians, who they contested with on the Great Plains in the American West during the Indian wars of the late 19th century. 

And they were well respected troops, by the army at least, but they could only be used in very certain ways because America did not accept Blacks in many different settings. Most of the Buffalo Soldier companies were overseen by White officers. But one in particular was not. That's the one that came to Sequoia and General Grant in the summer in 1903 overcome by a man named Captain Young, Captain Charles Young. 

He was an amazing person. He was determined to be a model to prove what his race was capable of doing in an America that really did not want the message, and pushed him back in every way. He got himself into West Point, a pretty astounding thing for the 19th century. Was one of the very few Black Americans to make it through West Point at that time, and was commissioned an officer, and rose from Second Lieutenant to First Lieutenant, finally, to captain. But of course, could only be sent out to oversee black troops, because it was unthinkable that he would give orders to White people. 

And so in the summer of 1903 he arrived in the park with his company, and he was just, in a way that he was throughout his career, was just a whirlwind of energy and accomplishment. He completed the road to Giant Forest, a project that had been underway for several previous years and had been a year or two, and he built another five or six miles that summer. He built a trail to the top of Mount Whitney that wasn't even in the park yet, but it was a military reservation set aside for meteorological studies. But he couldn't resist it. It's in the park today, of course. He got options on all the private lands in the park because he thought they all ought to belong to the government. He just was an amazingly active guy. 

And while he was at it, he looked at the biggest trees that were perceived at the time, and turned out to be true, the General Grant and the General Sherman over at Grant Park. And he built a fence around each with a sign that says, “Respect the tree. Keep out, please.” So up into that time, people had been carving their names in the trees and pounding their…the habit was to paint your name on a shingle and nail it to the tree. 

Doug Still
Right.

William C. Tweed
He cleaned them up and fenced them. 

Doug Still
Show some respect. 

William C. Tweed
Show some respect. Which was exactly what he was trying to show the world about himself, show some respect. And so one of the many things he accomplished, but sort of a model today, of course, the tree is fenced. It's been fenced in one regard or another since that time, consistently, since the late 1920s.

Doug Still  52:13
That's a great story. Is he recognized at the park in any way? Or is there a, I don't know, a display about him, or anything written?

William C. Tweed  52:20
There are displays. There actually, now is a very nice thing. There is a Charles Young tree.

Doug Still
Fantastic. 

William C. Tweed
His troopers proposed that there should be a tree named after him, and he said, “No.” I'd rather name a tree after other people. His attempt to recognize the kind of work he did was to name a tree after Booker T Washington. And he named a Booker T Washington tree. He recorded that in his annual report. He took a picture of it with a sign on it.

Doug Still  52:55
Here are the words of Captain Charles Young, Acting Superintendent of Sequoia and General Grant National Parks, in his 1903 report to the Secretary of the Interior.

Charles Young  53:07
The trees of the park consist of pines and cedars and firs in general, and of the giant redwoods, or sequoias in particular, all of which are well worth protecting. It has been previously remarked that the Sequoia National Park is the Giant Forest, but is believed by many that even without the grandeur of the Giant Forest, which is matchless anywhere else in the world, there are enough beautiful mountain views, delightful camping sites and watercourses stocked with fish to constitute a National Park where the overworked and weary citizens of the country can find rest, coolness, and quiet for a few weeks during the hot summer months, and where both large and small game can have a refuge and be allowed to increase. Indeed, a journey through this park and the Sierra Forest Reserve to the Mount Whitney country will convince even the least thoughtful man of the needfulness of preserving these mountains just as they are, with their clothing of trees, shrubs, rocks and vines, and of their importance of the valleys below as reservoirs for the storage of water for agricultural and domestic purposes. In this, then, lies the necessity of forest preservation.

It is recommended that the naming of giant trees by irresponsible parties be stopped. So far I know of no names placed upon trees that would not be acceptable to the entire nation. It should be so. I permitted the naming of three trees in Sequoia park this season. One, GAR tree in honor of the Grand Army of the Republic. Another, from its peculiar growth of three large trees from one big trunk, was named I, O, O, F, for the Odd Fellows of the Country, and the third, after repeated requests from visitors and the wishes of the workmen who finished the Giant Forest Road, was named for that great and good American, Booker T. Washington. To protect the General Grant and General Sherman trees, I had redwood fences made around them and notices duly posted against trespassing within their enclosures. This was necessary to prevent theft of bark and standing upon their roots by photographic parties. 

In conclusion, I would fail in my duty toward the officers and men if I did not commend the hearty cooperation and efficiency of the former, and the faithfulness to duty and good conduct of the latter, a fact that was commented upon by both visitors of the park and the residents in the neighborhoods of the camp. Respectfully submitted, Charles Young, Captain, Ninth Cavalry, Acting Superintendent.

Doug Still  56:02
Charles Young has been increasingly recognized for his achievements in recent times. In 2013, President Obama designated Young’s house the 401st unit of the National Park System, the Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument. He was posthumously promoted to Brigadier General. There’s a long list of honors. William Tweed states that Young was the first American to do anything to protect, administer, and oversee a national park, and he’s sort of a founding father of that particular tradition.

In this day and age, that government report he wrote is surprisingly moving. ‘Cause, that’s how you do it. A leader appreciates and acknowledges the hard work that the rank and file do every day, the extra effort. Especially when the work is important, and they care, as most government workers do. We need our National Parks Service and US Forest Service employees, with their critical skills and institutional knowledge. William Tweed served the Park Service for nearly 40 years, pouring his life into understanding the park he loves so much. He’s still telling the stories. We need more Charles Youngs, and we need more William C. Tweeds.

[music]

Doug Still  57:28
With the threats of climate change, drought, increased fire potential, and now the Sequoia Bark Beetle, the future longevity of giant sequoias is a serious concern. One source of hope is active, passionate involvement from nonprofits, and from researchers from both universities and the private sector, ready to work in collaboration with the National Park Service and the Forest Service. The big example is the Giant Sequoia Lands Coalition, which brings together many organizations like the Sequoia Parks Conservancy, Save the Redwoods League, the Ancient Forest Society, and the Tule River Tribe. There are others. Visit their websites to learn more about their research and the management actions they are taking. 

One particularly fascinating activity concerns “cultural burns” led by experts from local tribes. It’s a piece of the larger effort to manage prescribed low-intensity fires for the health of the forest since the 1960s, and prevent catastrophic fires that kill giant sequoias. Cultural burn demonstrations have been initiated by Tule River, North Fork Mono, and Tübatulabal tribes, a practice banned more than 100 years ago when fire was misunderstood. They are often tied to spiritual beliefs and rituals, and a celebration of culture. When it comes to the land, listening more to indigenous wisdom benefits everyone.

Back to William Tweed, who put our understanding of giant sequoias in perspective.

William C. Tweed  59:04
A concept I stumbled on in my trying to explain giant sequoia trees is what I call “Sequoia Time.” We all know human time. 100 years is a long time. Those of us who read and care about such stuff know about geologic time. A million years is a short moment, right? Well, in between is Sequoia Time. We spend all this time talking about how to manage and protect organisms that live 20 to 30 centuries as individual organisms. We have been paying attention to them, really, for a century and a half. My comparison is, say a Martian lands on the earth and studies human beings for six months and then explains everything you need to know about how human beings work. We would guess that Martian might miss a few things? That's how much we know about giant sequoia trees and time. We haven’t been here very long.

Doug Still  59:59
In terms of culture and inspiration, and due to its size and perhaps its sheer celebrity, the General Sherman tree seems different. We talked about that a little bit, and you've thought about the General Sherman tree more than anyone else, and you saw its effect on people. How does experiencing an entity of such vast proportions alter our perception of ourselves and change us?

William C. Tweed  1:00:31
The answers vary enormously, depending on the human mind that's looking at the tree. It's very hard for me to give you an answer of, “This is what a big giant sequoia tree does to people.” If there's anything that is universal, it is simply surprise. Which is not a very profound reaction, but it's a very common human reaction. We live in a world where everything almost has been photographed. I call it the National Geographic world. There's nothing we can't imagine, because we've seen a picture of everything. We're so accustomed to it we never even think about that. One hundred years ago, most of what's on this planet, nobody could imagine because nobody had ever seen it, or most people had not seen it.  Now we can see everything. I mean, how many things are on television and on the streaming services every night? And so, but, saying that, still, when you arrive at a giant sequoia tree, you discover something - particularly the General Sherman or the General Grant and the other very large trees - you discover that the photographs really do not do them justice.

Doug Still
Impossible. 

William C. Tweed
You've been there, you, I think you see, you probably had this reaction. You said, “Oh!” Or some elaborate, some better expressed version of that.

Doug Still  1:01:59
The photographs don't translate to how it actually feels to stand next to it in person.

William C. Tweed  1:02:04
Yes. And so there, I think, is the closest I can come to a universal reaction is, “There it is.” And it's so much bigger than anybody can imagine.

Doug Still  1:02:15
William, thank you very much for sharing your knowledge and for your entire career in studying and writing about giant sequoias. It's highly enlightening, and I think it means a lot to the world. So thanks, it's been very inspiring, and I'm glad you've joined This Old Tree today.

William C. Tweed  1:02:38
Well, it's been a great pleasure to be with you today. I've had the very rare privilege, as you've been hearing, to spend much of my life trying to understand these trees, and I can't imagine a better life. They teach us each something. I have learned so much about the natural world through hanging out with giant sequoia trees that I could talk for days about them, as you probably fear I would like to.

Doug Still  1:03:07
[chuckles] Thank you so much. 

William C. Tweed
Been my pleasure. 

Doug Still
Now to finish my own story.

[dreamy music]

Parking near the General Sherman tree was a challenge, even in March. The parking lot is tiny - and it’s a good thing not to turn our national park into a large parking lot - but it was full. I swung around and parked aways downhill along the road against a snow bank. As I carefully walked back to the entrance of the trail, I passed groups of people. I felt the buzz in the air, the excitement. 

The path to the tree was a sheet of ice, compacted from the foot traffic. It was no joke. A woman guided by her husband walked by, her face and coat covered in blood. I heard she face-planted on the ice and broke her nose. The cleats seemed like a great idea now. I clung to the fence and made small steps - no rush, but no turning back now. 

Coming around a bend, the tree appeared through the other trees like an adult among children. It was unbelievable, a massive presence rising up out of the snow, with snow covered branches like off a holiday card. Out in front of it, the space widens into a reverential viewing area. People stood in pairs and family groups, just staring up at the tree, snapping endless photos. Besides the tree’s immensity, what struck me most was how pristine it looks from the ground. The trunk is perfect - cinnamon brown and smooth. Any past wounds from fallen branches had long ago been swallowed up by the thick bark. Hardly any dead branches were to be seen, way high up. In fact, almost all the giant sequoias have this trait, a sort of glowing perfection.

The tree has a fence around it. In front of the fence on the ground is a wooden sign with white lettering that simply says, “General Sherman.” We tree viewers took turns posing behind the sign in front of the tree, and took pictures for each other. This felt like a communal event, with strangers sharing in the thrill and the joy. 

And not just for Americans, but for people all over the world. Just standing there I overheard Russian, Japanese, Spanish, Hindi, and German. I asked a young family to snap my picture in front of the tree, and then we chatted.

(to some fellow visitors)
So what are your names?  

Tom Allen 1:05:41
I’m Tom. 

Alex Allen
Alex.

Emmy Riley
and I'm Emmy. 

Doug Still  1:05:43
Nice to meet you. Where are you from? 

Tom and Alex
Australia, Melbourne. 

Doug Still
Did you come just to see the General Sherman tree? 

Tom Allen
I absolutely did. [laughter] We also brought the little one to see Disneyland.

Emmy Riley  1:05:54
Yeah, she saw Disneyland. And yeah, he wanted to come and see the big trees. 

Doug Still  1:05:58
So, what are your thoughts on visiting and seeing this enormous tree standing behind me.

Tom Allen 1:06:03
Oh I'm in absolute awe of this thing, it's gigantic. 

Alex Allen
I got shocked. 

Doug Still
You were surprised!

Emmy Riley
(to Alex) You were surprised, yeah. [laughter]

Doug Still  1:06:11
Do you know how old it is?

Tom Allen  1:06:14
Couple 1000 years, I think, is it? 

Alex Allen
I think it's 6,000 years! 

Emmy Riley
Oh, I think 21,000 is what it said on the website. Sorry, 2,100.

Doug Still  1:06:26
Yeah, I think maybe 2,100.

Emmy Riley
2,100 that's it. 

Doug Still
Why did you want to come see this tree? 

Tom Allen
Who wouldn't want to see the biggest tree in the world? 

Doug Still
Absolutely. [laughter] Do you have trees this big in Australia? 

Tom Allen
Tasmania? Absolutely. A giant ash. 

Doug Still
A giant ash in Tasmania. 

Tom Allen
Yeah, they're the second, the biggest, I think, maybe, or around there? 

Doug Still
Well, it looks like I'm gonna have to go there now to visit that tree. 

Emmy Riley
Oh, yeah, absolutely!

Tom Allen
It’s crazy, yeah.

Alex Allen
Yeah, it's humongous!

Doug Still  1:06:55
You see, trees bring people together. There’s no better example of that than the General Sherman Tree, and let’s not forget all its named brethren in the Giant Forest of Sequoia National Park. If you haven’t already, make sure you get there one day to see them in person.

[guitar music]

Thank you tree lovers, for joining me today to talk about the General Sherman Tree. My heartfelt thanks once again to William C. Tweed for spending a tiny bit of sequoia time to share his thoughts about these magnificent trees. There’s so much more to talk about. Links to his books are in the show notes. Thanks also to Josh Abrams for reading Hale Tharp, Ewan Eadie for playing John Muir, and Jeff Taliaferro for reading Charles Young. You guys were terrific. Original music was written for this episode by Justin Peters, inspired by what it might be like to visit a giant sequoia grove. As usual, the theme music is by Dee Lee, and artwork by Dahn Hiuni. Visit the show website at thisoldtree.show, transcripts are available. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram to see photos and get hints about what’s coming next. The podcast is now a sponsored project of the New England Chapter of the International Society of Arboriculture. Visit newenglandisa.org to learn more about this great organization. 

Thanks again for listening. I’m Doug Still, and this is This Old Tree.

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