The Whittlin’ Tree by Susan S. Carson

     As she has so many times in the past, Mother Nature again took away Southport’s famous “Whittlin’ Tree”.  However, after each natural disaster in the past, the tree has always been replaced either with City money or often with private donations.  Always the town landmark, a relic of her past, has made a comeback.

     An entry in the Alderman minutes of December 4, 1895, reads:  “On motion it was ordered that the Cedar Tree at the foot of Howe Street be protected by putting shells around its base.  Alderman Williams appointed to attend to said work.”  The cost of the project was $1.40 which was paid on December 20, 1895.

     In the Wilmington Morning Star of June 3, 1923, we read:  ”Southport has a relic of the past in the old Whittlin’ Tree near the waterfront, which has been standing there for 35 years. . . Natives and visitors while away their time beneath the shade of the tree.  Every year the bench must be renewed as the whittlers often take it in their heads to whittle it away.  Among the tales related about the famous tree is the number of knives used by the whittlers.  It is said that the man in the nearby grocery store sells two or three gross of knives every week”.

     Legends abound as to the beginning of the Whittlin’ Tree and its Cedar Bench.  Some claim that the first tree on the site was a large cedar named for George Washington, who was President when the town was founded.  Others claim the beginning date was 1888.  Still others give the date as 1893.  Whatever the date, the tree or trees growing in that spot were always named for prominent people.

     The most well-known legend began during the bitterness and confusion of the Presidential campaign of 1896, when local barber Paxton Tharp, generally referred to as “Mr. Pack”, planted two poplar trees on the site and named them William Jennings Bryan and William McKinley.  From Mr. Pack’s barbershop on South Howe Street he and his customers could see the fishermen, merchants and other men of the town gathered around the Whittlin’ Tree telling tall tales of the sea, discussing the weather and arguing politics.  The more heated the arguments, the faster flew the knives.  Miss Kate Stuart, known as “The Heroine of Smithville”, once said:  “Enough good white pine has been whittled away there in worthless shavings to build a fleet of sailing ships.”

     Later generations continued to use the Whittlin’ Tree and its Cedar Bench as a gathering spot for courting and meeting friends for an evening at the nearby Mack’s Cafe, the Amuzu Theater just up the street or sometimes The Pavillion on Long Beach.

     Many have written about Whittlers Bench and its trees.  Probably the most famous was Robert Ruark in his “Old Man and the Boy”.  Dorothy Bell Kaufman, beloved Southport native, news reporter and poet, penned these lines in her book “Inheritance of My Fathers”: 

Get me a stick and a bright, brisk blade,

And let me sit in the spread of shade

Where the tales are told and the jokes are made

Let me listen: I hear the beat

Of a small town’s heart in the sandy street

Beneath the boughs where the whittlers meet

                     While

clip, clop, the chips drop

By the Whittler’s Tree where the fishermen stop!”

 

Miss Susie is a historian of considerable note and the author of Joshua’s Dream, a best selling history of Smithville/Southport founded by Joshua Potts.  She can trace her family (Sellers and Hewetts) back to before the Revolutionary War in Brunswick County.

Originally published in The Pelican Post  September 1996 issue.