The USS Constitution, or Old Ironsides, built mainly of American oak timbers, distin- guished itself in service in the battles with the Barbary pirates and in the War of 1812.
repaired and overhauled many times. One of the biggest problems restorers have faced is finding the size and quantity of timber needed. Some of the wooden pieces need to be almost twenty-one inches thick and can take up to ten years to dry properly. The white oak for the planking and the keel now comes from Constitution Grove in Indiana, which was estab- lished by the US Navy in 1976 specifically to provide wood for Old Ironsides. But the two-hundred-year- old and older live oaks needed to provide interior framing and other timbers are no longer common. In 1989, the city of Charleston, South Carolina, donated live oak trees that had been felled by Hurricane Hugo to be used for repairs. The USS Constitu- tion, which is the oldest commissioned ship afloat in the world, is now anchored in the Charlestown Navy Yard in Boston, Massachusetts. More than 500,000 visitors each year tour this historic ship.
T H E E L K S M A G A Z I N E
The Live Oak Society
The enduring nature of oak trees is well documented. Early surveyors used them as landmarks in describing the land, knowing they could live for
centuries, even millennia. A record holder of note is the Seven Sisters Oak in Mandeville, Louisiana. It is esti- mated to be more than twelve hundred years old and has a circumference, or
Live oaks, common throughout the southern United States, are evergreens. Pictured is a double row of live oaks at Oak Alley Plantation in Vacherie, Louisiana.
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PHOTO: ANONYMOUS/AP
PHOTO: CORBIS
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