Historical Name: Maquon
Common Name: Bur Oak
Latin Name: Quercus macrocarpa
The town of Maquon is located near Spoon River in west-central Illinois. The town had been an Algonquin Indian village and a center of tribal activity before American settlers arrived. After the Black Hawk War, the federal government moved the Indians farther west. When settlers arrived in the middle 1830s, only a few Indians remained. Among them was an aged couple too frail to make the journey. It was agreed they should remain to spend their last days. They had a tepee by a small stream where a spring gave them fresh, clear water. They died at the site. The Maquon Bur Oak that shaded them still stands today among sister oaks. The village has grown around the site, but the area of the tepee is essentially as it was in the 1830s. This tree was grown from a seed taken from the Maquon Bur Oak, and was planted into UCNJ’s Historic Tree Grove in 1997.
(text adapted from American Forests)