OLYMPIA – The dedication of a Bush butternut tree in honor of George Washington Bush and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. drew a diverse crowd of community leaders, historians, lawmakers and church leaders today to the Capitol Campus.

“We are here to honor two great men, a century apart, on whose shoulders we are standing,” said Sen. Rosa Franklin, D-Tacoma, one of two lawmakers who arranged the planting and dedication of the Bush Butternut on the west campus between the totem pole and the Veteran’s Memorial.

Sen. Ken Jacobsen, D-Seattle, the other lawmaker, said the 16-foot sapling “will be a real inspiration, and in the future we will meet here on other important occasions.”

Franklin laid the groundwork for the Arbor Day memorial with a Senate floor speech earlier this year on Martin Luther King Day. That speech focused on King, the world-renowned civil-rights leader and 1964 Nobel Peace Prize winner. Bush is less well known but no less important to Washingtonians.

The son of a slave and an Irish maid, Bush was a free African-American who traveled west with other American pioneers from Missouri looking to settle in the Oregon territory. Laws barring the ownership of land by African-Americans forced the party to settle north of the Columbia River in what is now Tumwater — the first Americans in this area. Bush ran a vast farm, opened two local mills and provided charity to other early settlers. Through an act of Congress, Bush would become the first Black man to own his property. Later, he would assist the territory in its bid for statehood..

Bush brought with him a butternut sapling that he planted on his Tumwater-area farm; the tree’s base is now 21 feet in circumference and is believed to be the oldest documented butternut in the nation. The sapling on the Capitol Campus grew from a nut near the original tree, which is among the largest of its species on record.

Many credit Bush, and the various fruits of his massive farms, with helping transform Washington into the major agricultural power for which it owes much of its growth and prosperity in the decades that followed. Many fruit trees from the Bush pioneer farm still live, though most of the farm is now occupied by the Olympia Airport. A monument to the Bush family can be found at the airport’s southeast corner.