 Various estimates place the tree 's seeding sometime between 1354 and 1361 AD . Using borings from the tree , the Smithsonian Institution determined that the Mingo Oak was the oldest tree of its species . In September 1932 , West Virginia state forester D. B. Griffin and Emmett Keadle , president of the Mingo County Fish and Game Protective Association in Williamson , used an increment borer to estimate the tree as having begun its growth around 1356 , with a margin of error within 25 or 30 years . Blueprints and boring samples were given to the West Virginia State Museum in Charleston and to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington , D.C. 
