S1 S2 Witness Stumps

How to Find These Witness Tree Stumps

After visiting the summit of Little Round Top, you will travel north, down the northern slope of the hill. The two stumps will be on your left side, just off the road, 100 yards beyond the 121st New York monument.

The stumps are located about 300 feet north of the monument to the 121st New York, on the northern slope of Little Round Top. They are only a couple of yards off the west, or left, side of Sykes Avenue.

Tree Cutting on Little Round Top During the Restoration

It took a decade to approve, but the long-desired restoration of Little Round Top finally commenced in March of 2022. The plans included reconstructing the paths and roads, reducing parking for cars, but increasing parking for buses, at the summit, and shoring up the western ledge where extensive erosion made it dangerous to walk.

This old NPS photo captures the chestnut oak witness tree that was removed in 2022 to make room for a bus parking lot that never materialized. The red oak witness tree is hidden behind it. Another massive white oak tree, also a witness tree, was removed later because it had died. Its stump is further down the hill, a little harder to access as it is surrounded by dense brush and thorns.

The plans also included removing numerous trees on both sides of Sykes Avenue at the summit, many of which were witness trees. Luckily, almost immediately after the project began, the NPS pared back the ambitious original plan, thus saving a great many of the witness trees.

One piece of the puzzle which did not change right away was the plan to add bus parking along the northern slope of Little Round Top on Sykes Avenue near where it intersects the Wheatfield Road. Several trees were cut down, but then the NPS changed its mind later on, never creating the planned bus parking area. 

Unfortunately, it was too late to save three of the trees, which were witness trees.

Two of the stumps of the witness trees remain on the west side of Sykes Avenue: these are stumps S1 (chestnut oak) and S2 (red oak); the stump of a third witness tree, a hickory, stood on the east side of the road for a while, but was removed at some point during the restoration project, which went on for 2 years, before Little Round Top was finally reopened to the public in June 2024.

Witness Stumps S1 and S2

A cross-section, or cookie, of every tree that was cut down at the beginning of the project was sent to a lab to have its age determined by counting the rings. The numbers presented below are “official” numbers as determined by the lab.

As mentioned above, S1 was a chestnut oak, and S2 a red oak. The hickory on the east side of Sykes Avenue was 19 inches in diameter; 190 rings could be counted, but the center of the tree was rotted away – about three inches worth – so the tree was well over 200 years old.

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