General Lafayette and his army camped around this tree on April 12, 1781. A Civil War cavalry unit later occupied the site. The oak, over 500 years old, was owned by the Thomas Richards family for over a century. A huge limb fell in August 1964, splitting the trunk; in 1965 the tree measured 85 feet in height, 24 feet in girth, and 115 feet in spread. The tree was preserved from 1922 to 1960 by the Hytheham Club of Port Deposit and restored in 1965 by the Historical Society of Cecil County.