Episcopal
Great Oak Tree
The
Great Oak
at Episcopal High School was a mere sapling when the
first European settlers came to North Florida and built
permanent homes on the banks of the St. Johns River.
The
tree, also known as the Keystone Oak, would have reached
substantial size when Mary Packer Cummings and her husband,
Charles, built the family estate, Keystone Bluff, in
the 1880s. Mrs. Cummings was the daughter of Asa Packer,
who built Lehigh Valley Railroad, founded Lehigh University
and was governor of Pennsylvania.
When
Mary Packer Cummings died in 1912, she bequeathed the
twenty-eight-acre Keystone Bluff to St. John’s Episcopal
Parish and, in 1921, the church established a boys’
home on the property.
A
new bridge allowed access to the area and summer picnics
in the tree’s shade became common.
In
1966 Episcopal High School of Jacksonville was established,
and the Great Oak has shaded and sheltered students
since then.
Its
imposing profile embosses yearbooks, appears on school
publications and is the namesake for the school’s premier
giving circle, The Great Oak Society.
