Original Oleander Planting in Galveston

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, most stories about Galveston start with storms or ships or the sea. This one starts with a plant.

Specifically, one oleander, and the long trail it took to put down roots right here. The year was 1841, and a local businessman by the name of Joseph Osterman brought something back from Jamaica. An oleander.

Could have been easy to overlook, just a cutting, just a thing in a bag on a boat. But Osterman handed it off to his sister, a Mrs. Isidore Dyer, and she's the one who put it in the ground.

Planted it right there in the yard of her home, on this very location. Now that's where a lot of stories would end. Plant goes in the ground, years pass, the end.

But not this one. When a new structure was placed here in 1939, somebody made a decision. They didn't pull that oleander up and leave it behind.

They transplanted it. Moved it careful, kept it living. And what you're looking at today, what's growing right here, is an outgrowth of that original Dyer planting.

Same roots, more or less, tracing all the way back to Jamaica, back to 1841, back to a businessman and his sister who thought something worth planting was worth keeping. That's a long time for anything to hold on in Galveston. That oleander has outlasted more than most.

What the marker says

Brought from Jamaica, 1841, by local businessman Joseph Osterman; planted by Osterman's sister, Mrs. Isidore Dyer, in yard of her home at this location. Transplanted when new structure was placed here, 1939, this oleander is an outgrowth of original Dyer planting.