The name Buckeye comes from the folklore of the Native Americans who noticed that the nut of the Buckeye tree resembles the eye of a buck deer. They also roasted, peeled and mashed the buckeye nut which they called Hetuck into a nutritional meal. The poisonous and bitter tast can be eliminated by heating and leaching. Some believe that the buckeye relieves rheumatism pain. The symbol of General William Henry Harrison's presidential campaign was a string of buckeyes and a log cabin decorated with raccoon skins. His campaign song called Ohio the bonnie Buckeye state, as a result citizens in Ohio became know as "Buckeyes ." On October 2, 1953 the buckeye tree officially became the Ohio state tree.
