During the Civil War, James Wyman Johnson came from the field one morning, hung his scythe in the crotch of a small tree, and said, “Leave the scythe in the tree until I return.” He enlisted in the Union Army, Company G, 85th New York Volunteers on October 29, 1861. He died from wounds received at Plymouth, North Carolina in 1864. His parents, refusing to believe the report, left the scythe in the tree, where it remains completely enveloped. In 1918, during World War I, two brothers placed scythes in the same tree: Raymond L. Schaffer when enlisting in Company F, 33rd Engineers, and Lynn E. Schaffer when enlisting in the United States Navy. Both men returned, but their scythes remain embedded.