There are more than 2,000 trees on the grounds of the Hampton National Historic Site.

Some are the biggest of their kind in the state, some are older than the United States and some are even missing.

Now, after years of hard work, all of them are mapped and accounted for in a digital database. This will make life much easier for park staff, like horticulturist for the National Park Service James Hogan, who take care of and manage the trees around the site.

The mapped database can include all sorts of details about every single tree — its approximate age, its condition, whether it has lightning protection installed, when it was last maintained — all that information can be stored in one place.

“I put everything in there we could possibly need,” Hogan said.

Before the maps were made, Hogan said those kinds of records were stored all over the place without any consistency, if they even existed at all. But now?

“We will know the history of these trees from here on,” he said.

Most of the mapping work itself was handled by a collection of interns from local universities, working through the Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Units Network and the Chesapeake Conservation and Climate Corps, according to the National Park Service.

Caroline Etherton grew up in Mount Airy, and is about to reach her one-year anniversary of working at the Hampton National Historic Site and Fort McHenry through the conservation corps.

Part of her work was walking around the park sites to pinpoint the locations of trees for the database.

That involved using old field maps and an expensive tool, on loan from another site, called a Trimble R2 GNSS (global navigation satellite system).

“That’s basically the satellite receiver that helps our location data be as accurate as possible, a lot more accurate than just putting a pin on Apple Maps,” she said.

Etherton said the work took a long time, both walking around the park sites to locate and map the trees, and learning how to use the technology involved.

She said she probably spent the most time learning how to use the online platform, ArcGIS, that hosts and produces the maps.

“It was not quick. It definitely has taken a long time,” she said.

The mapping technology was already used at Fort McHenry, according to the parks service. Staff used it to help choose where to plant new trees along the seawall path that surrounds the fort.

At Hampton, Hogan said they’re in the “very early stages” of using the technology. Eventually, he wants the map to be accessible to the public to learn about the trees they’re visiting.

Maintaining history at Hampton National Historic Site

At its height, Hampton was an agricultural plantation spanning nearly 25,000 acres, where “hundreds” of enslaved people lived, according to the Park Service.

Today, the park is about 63 acres and has historic buildings including the mansion, domestic outbuildings, slave quarters and a family cemetery.

Also on the park ground are champion trees — those that are the largest of their species in the state or the county.

The site is home to county-level champion trees including cedar of Lebanon, white ash, European linden and European beech.

It’s also home to the state-level champion saucer magnolia.

The array of large, non-native trees is a remnant of the estate’s history, Hogan said. The owners used the trees to brag.

“It’s the way they were showing off their wealth. They wanted to flaunt and show off their money,” Hogan said.

They also imported and tended trees that are no longer standing on the manor’s ground. Even some of those are represented on the map, Hogan said.

Two of the gardens behind the manor, he explained, were once home to weeping scholar trees. They’re no longer standing and have not been replaced, but they’re included in the map — that way the historical record is maintained.

Many of the trees at Hampton are hundreds of years old, too. The approximate ages of the trees is one of the data points that could be made publicly available on the maps in the future.

“Some of the trees were here before the mansion was here. They witnessed the country become the country it is today,” Hogan said.

That’s a heritage worth preserving, Hogan said, so the trees — and entire historic site — are around for others to enjoy.