Beech the beech tree has such delicate bark, carvings, such as lovers' initials and other forms of graffiti, remain because the tree is unable to heal itself. Beech bark disease is a fungal infection that attacks the American beech through damage caused by scale insects. Infection can lead to the death of the tree. Beech was a late entrant to Great Britain after the last glaciation, and may have been restricted to basic soils in the south of England. Some suggest that it was introduced by Neolithic tribes who planted the trees for their edible nuts. The beech is classified as
Beech Settlement to find better-paying jobs. When the Beech community's school and church closed between 1900 and 1910, the settlement no longer functioned as a farming community. Fewer than six Beech families remained by 1920. Sanford Hill, the last African American farming in Ripley Township, died in 1955. Beech's friends and the descendants of its former residents hold annual reunions. As with many of Indiana's black rural settlements, educational opportunities were important to its rural residents but limited. Beech children attended subscription schools (parents paid for their children to attend) in the settlement's meetinghouses or at nearby Quakers schools. Beech School was