A.H. Patterson has vanquished his sycamore stumps absolutely, and now his front yard is a smooth expanse of rich soil awaiting a spring crop of lawn grass.
The conquest of the stumps did not come easy. They were dug at, hacked at, and set fire to and then hacked at again, and the struggle was one of the sights of the village for about two weeks. A good part of the time Mr. Patterson himself, a puzzled and often anxious look on his face, superintended the operations, and passers-by marveled at the intensity with which he applied himself to the task.
These sycamore trees, which were old in Civil War days and under which militia troops camped when President Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, came to the University commencement 50-odd years ago, where highly treasured by the village. But they died, and the tree experts said they had to go.
The felling was simple enough, but the stumps turned out to be unbelievably tough. Great pits were dug around them, and then the rains fell, and Wecky Woollen and his playmates put on rubber boots and waded in the little ponds. Chopping was resumed upon the return of good weather. While it was in progress, James M. Bell came by and said the thing to do was to burn the stumps. That was how people got rid of stumps in Canada, he said.
On his advice the limbs which had been converted into firewood were piled up in the pits, covered with kerosene, and ignited. The fires burned and burned, day after day. The stumps slowly yielded—but too slowly. After several cords of wood had been consumed, axes were brought into play again. Laborers who had deserted the job in its early stages gathered fresh courage and came back to it. So at last the destruction was achieved.
From page 4 of the Chapel Hill Weekly, Thursday, March 12, 1925
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073229/1925-03-12/ed-1/seq-4/
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