The Pringle Tree: A Hollow Home for Army Deserters

From 1764 to 1767, two brothers named John and Samuel Pringle lived inside the hollow trunk of a massive sycamore tree near the confluence of Turkey Run and the Buckhannon River in present-day Upshur County, West Virginia. The pair had deserted from the British-American army at Fort Pitt and found the remote Buckhannon Valley to be the perfect hideout — and their tree was no tight squeeze, either. The hollow was reportedly large enough that an eight-foot fence rail could be turned around inside it. After John made a supply run to a trading post on the South Branch in 1768 and returned convinced they were no longer wanted men, the brothers left their unusual home for good. Within a year, they had led a small party of settlers back to the valley, effectively founding one of the earliest permanent settlements in the region. A highway historic marker on U.S. 119 north of Buckhannon marks the site today, and a sycamore still standing there is said to have grown from the roots of the original tree.