[John H. Dennis, The Witch Tree of Tuscarora, Reno Evening Gazette, July 6, 1892]

 

AN OLD HOAX REVIVED.

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History of the Tuscarora Luminous Tree Romance — Truth Harder to Believe than Fiction

            Many of the GAZETTE readers doubtless remember the story of the famous Tuscarora luminous tree, which went the rounds of the press and which caused so much comment some seven or eight years ago. The account of the wonderful plant first appeared in the Tuscarora Times Review July 31st, 1884, and was copied either wholly or in part by papers in every State in the Union, besides a number in Canada, England, Scotland and Wales. We notice that the same story, after all these years, is again going the rounds in the East, the description being nearly the same, but the locality changed to the vicinity of Tuscarora, "New York." The following is the story as it originally appeared in the Times-Review:

            "There is a most remarkable tree or shrub in a small gulch near some springs about twelve miles northerly from Tuscarora. It is some eight or ten feet in height with a trunk which, at its base, is perhaps five times the size of a man's wrist. It has innumerable branches and twigs and resembles somewhat the barberry tree or brush indigenous to certain localities in the New England States. But its only remarkable characteristic is its foliage, which at a certain season of the year is so luminous that it can be plainly distinguished in the darkest night for the distance of a couple of miles, and it emits sufficient light to enable a person, from eighty to a hundred yards away, to read the finest print as readily as by the rays of a noonday sun. Its foliage is extremely rank and its leaves resemble somewhat, in size, shape, texture and color, those of the aromatic bay-tree of California. Its luminous property is evidently parasitic and consists of a gummy substance, which on being transferred to a person's hand by rubbing, imparts to it the same apparently phosphorescent light, while that on the leaf entirely disappears. The only reasonable explanation for the phenomenon that we can imagine is, that the leaves possess some quality which either generates or attracts phosphoric matter. The Indians regard it with superstitious awe and will not approach it, even in the day time if they can possibly avoid it. They have a name for it which, liberally interpreted, means "witch tree." They do not like to talk about it, and all that the writer could elicit from an old Shoshone frequenter of the Times-Review office was a grave shake of the head, and the ejaculation, "bad medicine." We do not remember of ever having read or heard of a tree possessing the peculiarity of the one we have so imperfectly described, nor do we imagine that the species is generally known to the scientific world. The specimen in this vicinity is well worthy the attention of the scientists of the Pacific Coast."

            Major J. H. Dennis, who was the author of the item and editor of the Times-Review at the time, relates to a GAZETTE reporter the history of the famous hoax as follows. He says : "I don't know what impelled me to write the item. It was certainly not with the intention of deceiving anybody, for I didn't suppose that any one with brains enough to have the headache would give the matter a serious thought. It was merely a fanciful sketch, written upon the spur of the moment late one afternoon when a hole had to be filled in the local columns of the paper. I never thought of it again until I began to notice that the story was being copied as a sober fact by many of our Eastern exchanges, and often with grave and learned comments. Pretty soon I began to get letters of inquiry in regard to the matter. I suppose that in less than five months I received upwards of two hundred. They came from all parts of the Union and some from Canada, England, Scotland and Wales, and I believe one from Australia. They asked all sorts of questions, and most of them wanted specimens of the leaves of the wonderful tree. A number of tourists wrote, inquiring as to the hotel accommodations, the means of transportation, etc. I was amused at first, but the thing soon became an intolerable nuisance, so I concluded to kill off the confounded plant, which I did in a statement in the paper that the Indians, becoming suspicions of the attention of the whites being drawn to the shrub, had destroyed it, root, trunk and branch, leaving no vestige of it remaining, not even the ashes, which they had scattered to the four winds of Heaven. It was some time, however, before the letters ceased coming or the papers dropped the subject. I was informed, out [sic] whether correctly or not I do not know, that the Chautauqua Society at its annual meeting gravely discussed the matter and the causes of the phenomenon.

            "That truth is stranger than fiction, or, at least, that the latter is moat readily credited, was instanced by the difference with which the tree hoax and the 'female husband' sensation, also published a few years earlier in the Times-Review, were received by the reading public. Although not a word except the absolute truth was published concerning the matter of Sarah Maud Pollard and Marancey Hughes, who were married by a Justice of the Peace in Tuscarora, the statements in regard to the discovery, the trial in the Justice's Court, and the subsequent reconciliation were generally regarded even by the Nevada newspapers, as a rather indelicate attempt to fool the people by a series of sensational relations which had no foundation in fact. Being wrongfully accused in the first matter perhaps I was rather pleased than otherwise that my little tree romance, so innocently inspired and written, should be accepted by these same doubting Thomases as gospel truth."