There are a few stories about these eight trees. A professor at UO recalled them being the same kind that grows in Sherwood Forest in England.  During WWII, a British student who spent his childhood in Sherwood Forest and who was currently attending UO, drown.  His parents, distraught over the death of their son wanted a living memorial of him to be on the campus he loved.  So they sent over the eight might oaks that still stand on the quad today.  As the story goes, the saplings had to cross the Atlantic during WWII to get to Oregon; to do this, they had to evade German war planes!

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Though, the “official” story says the eight Pyramidal English Oaks, which are native to England were actually purchased in Illinois and sent via train, to campus.  It's thought they were planted in either 1989 or 1940.  In this version, the trees are a living memorial to UO student Robert Chase Bailey, 1939's senior class president, who drowned in the Millrace. 

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8 Oaks of the Quad