Some Historic Trees


    [Illustration: Boards of the Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen
    County]

One of a historical series, this pamphlet is published under the
direction of the governing Boards of the Public Library of Fort Wayne
and Allen County.

           BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE SCHOOL CITY OF FORT WAYNE

  _B.F. Geyer, President_
  _Joseph E. Kramer, Secretary_
  _W. Page Yarnelle, Treasurer_
  _Mrs. Sadie Fulk Roehrs_
  _Willard Shambaugh_

                 PUBLIC LIBRARY BOARD FOR ALLEN COUNTY

The members of this Board include the members of the Board of Trustees
of the School City of Fort Wayne (with the same officers) together with
the following citizens chosen from Allen County outside the corporate
City of Fort Wayne:

  _James E. Graham_
  _Arthur Nieneier_
  _Mrs. Glenn Henderson_
  _Mrs. Charles Reynolds_




                                FOREWORD


From earliest times, trees have served and interested man. Primitive man
found trees to be a source of food, fuel, clothing, and building
material. In the dim, distant past certain trees were considered sacred
as the habitat of woodland deities. Today, some giants of the forest are
known for their great age and as landmarks; they are often associated
with historical events.

The first portion of this pamphlet was published in the FORT WAYNE
SENTINEL on July 11, 1891, and describes historic trees of the Colonial
and Revolutionary periods. Grammar, spelling, and punctuation have been
changed to correspond with current usage. The second part was written by
the Library Staff; stories of notable trees of the Old Northwest are
related.

The Boards and the Staff of the Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen
County present this publication in the hope that it will prove
entertaining and informative to citizens of the Summit City.


There has been no Methuselah since the flood. Man seldom lives longer
than one hundred years. Only the elephant and the tortoise feebly
imitate the longevity of the antediluvians. But there are living things
that outlive them all—things far more stately than the tallest man or
largest quadruped—living things that were companions of the gray beards
before the flood and lived to bless their grandchildren.

The only living links between us and the remote past are trees—grand old
trees with clustering memories like trailing vines. In the shadows of
the dark forest, in the light of the lofty hills, in the warmth and
beauty of the broad plains of the great globe, they stand in matchless
dignity. But they are few. They are patriarchs of the vegetable kingdom,
receiving the homage of myriads of children. With what mute eloquence do
they address us? With what moving pathos do the trees of Olivet
discourse of Jesus, his “beautiful life and sublime death”? How the
cedars of Lebanon talk of Solomon and Hiram, and the great temple of
Jerusalem! In our own country and in our own time, ancient trees have
been, and still are, intimately connected with our history as colonies
and as a nation; they command the reverence of every heart.

Probably the most ancient of these living links connecting the present
and the past was the Big Tree that stood on the bank of the Genesee
River, near the village of Geneseo, New York. When first seen by the
white man, it was the patriarch of the Geneseo Valley and was so revered
by the Senecas that they named their village “Big Tree.” It also gave
name to an eminent Seneca chief, who was the friend of Washington and
his cause. During a great flood in the Geneseo Valley in 1857, the Big
Tree was swept 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.

    [Illustration: Penn’s Treaty Tree]

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.

    [Illustration: a black walnut tree at Stony Point]

Near Seaconnet, Rhode Island, stood a venerable sycamore tree, the only
great tree left in that section of the state by the British when they
evacuated it in October, 1779. Seaconnet Channel was the scene of one of
the most dashing exploits of the War of Independence. The British had
blocked the channel with the warship, “Pigot,” which was armed with
twelve eight-pounders and ten swivels. Captain Silas Talbot undertook
the capture of the “Pigot.” Embarking sixty men on the coasting schooner
“Hawke” which was armed with only three three-pounders and small arms,
he sailed under cover of darkness. Grappling the enemy, he boarded,
drove the crew below, coiled the cables over the hatchway to secure his
prisoners, and carried off his prize to Stonington.

In Charleston until 1849 there was a beautiful magnolia tree which
spread its branches over more than two hundred square feet. Under this
tree General Benjamin Lincoln held a council in 1780 to determine
whether Charleston, then besieged by Sir Henry Clinton, should be
evacuated. It was resolved to remain, but a few weeks later the
Americans surrendered to the British, who had been reinforced by Lord
Cornwallis.

At Lake Drummond in the Dismal Swamp in Virginia, there is a tall tree
under which Washington is reputed to have passed a night in Colonial
times.

When Thomas Moore, the Irish poet, visited Norfolk in 1834, he heard the
story of a young man who became mentally unbalanced on the death of his
beloved. Refusing to admit her death, he believed that she was living
deep within the swamp. Under that impression he wandered into its
solitudes and perished. Moore used this legend as the basis for his
touching ballad “The Lake of the Dismal Swamp,” which commences:

  “They made her a grave, too cold and damp
  For a soul so warm and true;
  And she’s gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp,
  Where, all night long, by a fire-fly lamp,
  She paddles her white canoe.

  And her fire-fly lamp I soon shall see,
  And her paddle I soon shall hear;
  Long and loving our life shall be,
  And I’ll hide the maid in a cypress tree,
  When the footstep of death is near.”

The last of our historical trees is a white oak in the eastern part of
the village of Flushing on Long Island a few miles from New York. George
Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends, preached under it in 1672,
and afterward it was held in deep regard by the Quakers.


FORT WAYNE SENTINEL, July 11, 1891


Hoosiers and other Midwesterners may well be proud of the interesting
trees of their states. These giants of the forest are interesting
because of closely connected historical events or because of special
facets of their own histories. Indiana and her neighboring states have
produced great trees worthy of special mention.

The fame of a tree is perpetuated and frequently exaggerated or altered
during its lifetime. The natives consider the tree as a landmark; they
proudly point it out and relate its history to strangers. All too often
when the tree dies and is felled, it is unfortunately forgotten. The
legend also dies for succeeding generations.

The citizens of Indiana are indeed fortunate that their most famous
tree, the Constitution Elm, has not been allowed to sink into oblivion.
Delegates met at Corydon, Indiana’s first capitol, on June 10, 1816, to
draft the first state constitution. The weather was unseasonably warm;
the heat may have influenced the committee to adjourn to the shade of a
huge elm on the lawn of the Statehouse. Under these sheltering branches
spreading over one hundred feet, the delegates met each day until they
had completed that historic document on the twenty-ninth of June in that
memorable summer. The elm perished in 1925 from a fatal root disease,
phloem necrosis, but the trunk was preserved and set in a sandstone
monument.

Another elm connected with the political history of Indiana grew at
Plainfield. In 1842 Martin Van Buren toured the West, and his itinerary
included Indianapolis and Terre Haute with a stop en route at
Plainfield. Although 1842 was not a presidential election year, Van
Buren undoubtedly had in mind the coming nominations of 1844, for he
made speeches at every stop and gave his political opinions freely. In
Indianapolis he was given an enthusiastic reception by his friends and
admirers. But he also had political enemies in Indiana. The owners of
the stage coach lines were incensed because he had not favorably
received legislation for road improvement.

    [Illustration: the Constitution Elm ... Corydon, Indiana]

These enemies planned to mar his arrival at Plainfield and had little
trouble bribing the driver of Van Buren’s coach to effect it. The
National Road led into Plainfield, and beside it towered an ancient elm.
The massive roots of the tree extended across the road. As the coach
approached the tree, the driver whipped up the horses instead of slowing
them down. The wheels struck the obstacle; the impact upset the coach,
and Van Buren landed in the muddy road. His political foes succeeded in
spoiling his arrival at Plainfield and doubtlessly impressed him with
the urgent need for highway improvement! The local chapter of the
Daughters of the American Revolution has since marked this elm with a
plaque.

The patriarch of Fort Wayne’s apple trees was bearing fruit long before
General Wayne appeared on the scene. When Chief Richardville of the
Miami Indians was born in a hut near the tree in 1761, the apple tree
stood in the midst of the Miami village, Kekionga. The city grew and
prospered; late in the nineteenth century the venerable tree perished at
an estimated age of one hundred and fifty years. Although the exact
location is unknown, it stood in the Lakeside residential district of
Fort Wayne. An article in the May, 1862, issue of HARPER’S NEW MONTHLY
MAGAZINE reveals that the trunk of the ancient tree measured twenty feet
in diameter in 1860.

New Harmony, Indiana, the scene of two remarkable social experiments,
had two trees worthy of mention. In 1803 the Harmonists, under the
leadership of George Rapp, separated from the Lutheran church in Germany
and migrated to Pennsylvania. In 1815 the sect moved again; the members
decided on a site which they called “Harmonie” on the Wabash River in
Indiana. Upon disembarking at their destination, they slept under an oak
tree, which was later named “The Rappite Oak.” Rapp built his own house
near the tree. The Harmonists were so successful in their communal
living experiment that jealous neighbors made life unpleasant for them,
and they returned to Pennsylvania in 1824. But the oak survived until
1900 and outlived all of the Harmonists, whose numbers dwindled rapidly
because of their strict adherence to celibacy.

Robert Owen (1771-1858), another social experimenter, purchased the
settlement from Rapp and renamed it “New Harmony.” Unlike the
Harmonists, Owen and his followers were humanists. Their community did
not flourish long, but while in existence it was the home of a brilliant
group of scientists. Among them were Thomas Say, a noted zoologist,
Thomas Nutthall, a botanist, and William Maclure, one of the world’s
outstanding geologists. All three men are commemorated by an Osage
Orange tree planted in New Harmony in 1826. Say planted the tree and
Nutthall conferred its scientific name, “Maclura pomifera,” in honor of
Maclure. The tree was still alive in the 1920’s, a memorial to an
experiment, which, although short lived, has had a lasting influence
upon American democracy.

Several trees in the Great Lakes area were famous for their connections
with treaty negotiations between the white settlers and the Indians.
Just two days after the signing of the Declaration of Independence,
Alexander and William Macomb purchased Grosse Ile and several smaller
islands at the mouth of the Detroit River. The Fox and Potawatomi
Indians signed a treaty ceding the islands in return for tobacco,
blankets, and a small sum of money. The document was signed under a
linden tree, which survived the event a century and a quarter. It was
felled by a violent storm on July 3, 1901; the site has been marked by a
tablet.

Relations between the Indians and settlers were not distinguished by a
high code of honor; the unprovoked murders occasionally committed by
both white and red men are probably the ugliest testimony of that fact.
Chief Logan of the Mingo tribe has immortalized an elm tree by his reply
to just such a treacherous mass murder. In the course of Dunmore’s
campaign against the Indians in 1774, Colonel Cresap had killed all of
Logan’s relatives in spite of Logan’s unblemished record as a friend of
the whites. After this unwarranted cruelty, the embittered chief joined
the battle against the settlers. The Indians were finally forced to make
peace. Logan, standing beneath an elm tree in Pickaway County, Ohio,
made his famous and moving appeal to Dunmore’s representative:

    [Illustration: patriarch of Fort Wayne’s apple trees]

“I appeal to any white man to say if he ever entered Logan’s cabin
hungry, and he gave him not meat; if he ever came cold and naked, and he
clothed him not? During the course of the last long and bloody war,
Logan remained idle in his camp, an advocate for peace. Such was my love
for the whites that my countrymen pointed as I passed and said, ‘Logan
is the friend of the white man.’ I had ever thought to have lived with
you but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the last spring, in
cold blood and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not even
sparing my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the
veins of any living creature. This called on me for vengeance. I have
sought it. I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my
country I rejoice at the beams of peace; but don’t harbor a thought that
mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his
heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one.”

In Webster County, Kentucky, a tree acquired a sinister reputation
because of its association with an infamous criminal. Two notorious
brothers, Micajah and Wiley Harpe, came to Kentucky from North Carolina
in 1799. Commonly known as “Big Harpe” and “Little Harpe,” the men left
a trail of murder and plunder as they moved across the state. Arrested
and imprisoned for murder, the desperadoes escaped and killed a boy and
three men. They finally climaxed their crimes by murdering an entire
family of women and children.

The outraged citizens, led by Captain Leeper, organized a posse and rode
in search of the outlaws. One of the party was Mr. Stigall, the husband
and father of the last group of victims. The posse overtook the brothers
in Webster County, at a point near the junction of Union and Henderson
counties. Captain Leeper shot and wounded “Big Harpe,” and Mr. Stigall
killed him; but “Little Harpe” escaped unharmed.

The incensed men decapitated Harpe, and impaled his head on a sharpened
sapling growing nearby. The tree continued to grow, branching around its
shortened trunk. Underneath the head, a face was later carved into the
bole of the tree. The sculptured effigy remained clearly visible until
the landmark was hewn down nearly a century later. The tree grew beside
the intersection of roads from Henderson, Hopkinsville, and Morganfield,
and the crossroads became known as “Harpe’s Head.”




                          Transcriber’s Notes


—Silently corrected a few typos.

—Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook
  is public-domain in the country of publication.

—In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by
  _underscores_.