"Angel Oak is a live oak. Live oaks are native to the Low Country and are not very tall but have a wide spread canopy. Angel Oak stands on part of Abraham Waight's 1717 land grant. Mr. Waight owned several plantations. The City of Charleston now owns Angel Oak."
"Towering over 65 feet high, the Angel Oak has shaded John's Island, South Carolina, for over 1400 years, and would have sprouted 1000 years before Columbus' arrival in the New World. Recorded history traces the ownership of the live oak and surrounding land, back to the year 1717 when Abraham Waight received it as part of a small land grant. The tree stayed in the Waight family for four generations, and was part of a Marriage Settlement to Justus Angel and Martha Waight Tucker Angel. In modern times, the Angel Oak has become the focal point of a public park. Today the live oak has a diameter of spread reaching 160 feet, a circumference of nearly 25 feet, and covers 17,100 square feet of ground."
"The Angel Oak is thought to be one of the oldest living things east of the Mississippi River. Live oaks generally grow out and not up, but the Angel Oak has had plenty of time to do both, standing 65 ft high and with a canopy providing 17,000 square feet of shade. Its limbs, the size of tree trunks themselves, are so large and heavy that some of them rest on the ground (some even drop underground for a few feet and then come back up), a feature common to only the very oldest live oaks. It has survived countless hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and human interference, so there's a good chance it will still be there waiting for you."
This information is edited from the website: www.angeloaktree.org
