"The Crying Tree"

KD-14

Sarah Elizabeth “Sallie” Adams (1841-1913) was about five years old when she and her family were sold at a slave auction outside the Smyth County Courthouse. Thomas Thurman, whose house stood near here, bought Sallie to be a body servant for his sickly wife. A slave owner from Lynchburg purchased Sallie's mother, whom she never saw again, and her siblings. In later years, Sallie told her children that, when possible, she would slip out of Thurman’s house and cry next to a white oak tree in the yard. She would sometimes hug the tree and tell it about her burdens and sorrows, and it became her friend and confidant. That tree ultimately became known in the community as “The Crying Tree.”

Department of Historic Resources, 2019

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Sarah Elizabeth Madison death certificate (1913). Sallie Adams in U.S. Census, 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910. Thomas Thurman in U.S. Census, 1830, 1840, 1850, 1860. William Thurman, slaveholding census, 1860. Donna Reneé Clifton, “A Portraiture of Evelyn Thompson Lawrence,” (Ed.D. diss., East Tennessee State University, 2012). Evelyn Lawrence (deceased), oral history presented to Marion Town Council (Jan. 2013). Jeff Kirwin, Nancy Ross Hugo, and Robert Llewellen, Remarkable Trees of Virginia (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008). Henry Clay Smith (1862-1952): https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Smith-181646 Jeff Kirwan, “Finding Strength and Solace in a Tree,” American Forests (Fall 2012): 46-47. http://theconsummatedabbler.com/2015/08/3-trees-in-virginia-tell-stories-of-slavery-faith-and-freedom/ Abingdon Virginian, 17, 24 April 1863.