Council Oak

A large oak tree looms over a man in a horse and buggy in this 1895 photograph. According to local history this is the tree under which multiple Continental Army leaders met the evening before the Battle of Kings Mountain. The handwritten caption below the photograph reads:

“’Council Oak,’ near Morganton. Under this oak, at Pleasant Gardens, at the home of the McDowell’s, Cols. Campbell, Sevier, Shelby, McDowell, Cleveland and Major Winston met the 30th of September 1780 and determined to pursue Ferguson, whom they defeated and killed at Kings Mountain the 7th day of October 1780. This Oak is 204 feet from tip to tip of the limbs and thirty feet circumference two feet above ground.”

The tree no longer survives, but a marker was placed where it stood in commemoration of the site. This image is today part of the collection of Kings Mountain National Military Park.