Some Historic Trees — Themes and Context

t away and buried in the bottom of Lake Ontario. The trunk measured twenty-five feet, nine inches in circumference.

Probably next in age to the Big Tree was the famous Charter Oak in the city of Hartford, Connecticut. It was standing at the height of its glory and was estimated to be six hundred years old when the seeds of the commonwealth were planted there. Connected with it is a curious episode. When James II ascended the English throne, he took measures to suppress the growth of free government in America; he sent over Edmond Andros to take away the charters from the colonies and to rule over them as governor general. Connecticut refused to give up her charter. When Andros attempted to seize it during a night session of the Assembly, Captain Wadsworth bore the charter away and secreted it in a hollow of the old oak. After James II had been deposed and Andros had been banished from New England, the charter was taken from its hiding place and the government re-established. On a stormy night in August, 1854, the old oak was prostrated.

In the Kensington area of Philadelphia, an old elm stood until 1810, known as Penn’s Treaty Tree, because under it the renowned Quaker made his compact with the Indians. “I will not do as the Marylanders did, that is, call you children or brothers only,” said Penn, addressing the Indians, “for parents are apt to whip their children too severely, and brothers sometimes will differ; neither will I compare the friendship between us to a chain for the rain may rust it or a tree may fall and break it, but I will consider you as the same flesh and blood with the Christians, and the same as if one man’s body were to be divided into two parts.”

Until 1860 a venerable willow tree stood in New York City and it has an interesting history. When Alexander Pope, the English poet, built his villa at Twickenham, he planted a small twig that a friend had sent him from Smyrna. This little twig of the Salix babylonica, or weeping willow, became the parent of all its kind in England and in the United States. One of the British officers who came to Boston in 1775 to crush the American Revolution carried with him a twig from Pope’s willow to plant on American soil. The twig was presented to John Parke Custis, Washington’s stepson, and was planted at Abingdon, Virginia. In 1790 General Gates planted a shoot from it on his farm on Manhattan Island, where it became in time a beautiful willow, the grandchild of Pope’s willow at Twickenham.

Soon after the great conflict for American independence had begun, Washington was appointed Commander in Chief of the continental forces; on July 2, 1775, he took up his headquarters at Cambridge, Massachusetts. The following morning he proceeded to a great elm tree at the north end of Cambridge Common and drawing his sword, he formally took command of the army. The old elm tree was known afterward as Washington’s Elm.

Near the dividing line between North and South Carolina stood a famous tulip tree, marking the spot where the Americans defeated a part of Lord Cornwallis’ army in October, 1780. Because ten Tories were hanged from its branches after the battle, the tree was called afterward the Tory Tulip Tree.

Until about 1852, a majestic pine tree stood by the highway between the villages of Fort Edward and Sandy Hill (now Hudson Falls) on the Hudson in upstate New York. Upon its trunk was carved “Jane McCrea, 1777.” The inscription memorialized the tragic fate of Jane McCrea. The daughter of a New Jersey clergyman, she moved, after her father’s death, to her brother’s home near Fort Edward. Here she became engaged to a neighbor’s son. He was a loyalist who entered the army of Burgoyne. In 1777, Jane was captured by Indians and was killed instantly when a bullet intended for the savages pierced her heart. Her lover purchased the locks of his beloved, deserted the army, and retired to Canada, where he bewailed his betrothed’s fate until the end of his life.

In 1779 Washington sent Mad Anthony Wayne to storm the fort on Stony Point in the Hudson highlands. When asked by Washington whether he could carry the fort, Wayne replied: “I’ll storm hell if you will only plan it!” Under a black walnut tree, in the stillness of the night, Wayne gave orders to his men, and as stealthily as tigers they approached the fort and surprised it. In the early morning Wayne wrote to the Commander in Chief, “The fort and garrison and Colonel Johnston are ours.” The walnut tree has perished.