Black Locust is the strongest timber in North America. It helped build Jamestown and was used as nails/pegs in Live Oak navy ship hulls, yet today few Americans have heard of it. Of all the trees favored by our colonial predecessors, both as an ornamental and as a utilitarian tree, the black locust is perhaps the most significant. It is first mentioned by William Strachey, a member of the 1609 resupply mission to Jamestown. The extreme resistance to rotting is perhaps the black locust's best-known attribute, and it was on poles of Black Locust that the first buildings in Jamestown were erected. The Locust tree is a very straight, tall and rather thick tree whose wood is some of the toughest in all the world. The American Indians used the locust to form their bows.