By L. L. DAME. Historic Trees:
The Washington Elm; The Eliot Oak. [The Bay State monthly.
/ Volume 1, Issue 2, Feb., 1884]. "The
Washington Elm," taken from the Bay State Monthly (1884).
On-line at: http://etcetera.topcities.com/trees/dame1.htm
AT THE NORTH end of the Common in Old Cambridge stands the
famous Washington Elm, which has been oftener visited, measured,
sketched, and written up for the press, than any other tree
in America. It is of goodly proportions, but, as far as girth
of trunk and spread of branches constitute the claim upon
our respect, there are many nobler specimens of the American
elm in historic Middlesex.
Extravagant claims have been made with regard to its age,
but it is extremely improbable that any tree of this species
has ever rounded out its third century. Under favorable conditions,
the growth of the elm is very rapid, a single century sometimes
sufficing to develop a tree larger than the Washington Elm.
When Governor Winthrop and Lieutenant-Governor Dudley, in
1630, rode along the banks of the Charles in quest of a suitable
site for the capital of their colony, it is barely possible
the great elm was in being. It would be a pleasant conceit
to link the thrifty growth of the young sapling with the steady
advancement of the new settlement, enshrining it as a sort
of guardian genius of the place, the living witness of progress
in Cambridge from the first feeble beginnings.
The life of the tree, however, probably does not date farther
back than the last quarter of the seventeenth century. In
its early history there was nothing to distinguish it from
its peers of the greenwood. When the surrounding forest fell
beneath the axe of the woodman, the trees conspicuous for
size and beauty escaped the general destruction; among these
was the Washington Elm; but there is no evidence that it surpassed
its companions.
Tradition states that another large elm once stood on the
northwest corner of the Common, under which the Reverend George
Whitefield, the Wesleyan evangelist, preached in 1745. Others
claim that it was the Washington Elm under which the sermon
was delivered. The two trees stood near each other, and the
hearers were doubtless scattered under each. But the great
elm was destined to look down upon scenes that stirred the
blood even more than the vivid eloquence of a Whitefield.
Troublous times had come, and the mutterings of discontent
were voicing themselves in more and more articulate phrase.
The old tree must have been privy to a great deal of treasonable
talk at first, whispered with many misgivings, under the cover
of darkness; later, in broad daylight, fearlessly spoken aloud.
The smoke of bonfires, in which blazed the futile proclamations
of the King, was wafted through its branches. It saw the hasty
burial, by night, of the Cambridge men who were slain upon
the nineteenth of April, 1775; it saw the straggling arrival
of the beaten, but not disheartened, survivors of Bunker Hill;
it saw the Common granted to the town as a training-field
suddenly transformed to a camp, under General Artemas Ward,
commander - in - chief of the Massachusetts troops.
The crowning glory in the life of the great elm was at hand.
On the twenty- first of June, Washington, without allowing
himself time to take leave of his family, set out on horseback
from Philadelphia, arriving at Cambridge on the second of
July. Sprightly Dorothy Dudley in her Journal describes the
exercises of the third, with the florid eloquence of youth.
"To-day, he (Washington) formally took command, under
one of the grand old elms on the Common. It was a magnificent
sight. The majestic figure of the General, mounted upon his
horse beneath the wide-spreading branches of the patriarch
tree; the multitude thronging the plain around, and the houses
filled with interested spectators of the scene, while the
air rung with shouts of enthusiastic welcome, as he drew his
sword, and thus declared himself Commander-in-chief of the
Continental army."
Dorothy does not specify under which elm Washington stood.
It is safely inferable from her language that our tree was
one of several noble elms which at this time were standing
upon the Common. Although no contemporaneous pen seems to
have pointed out the exact tree beyond all question, happily
the day is not so far distant from us that oral testimony
is inadmissible. Of this there is enough to satisfy the most
captious critic.
Where the stone church is now situated, there was formerly
an old gambrel-roofed house, in which the Moore family lived
during the Revolution. The situation was very favorable for
observation, commanding the highroad from Watertown to Cambridge
Common, and directly opposite the great elm. From the windows
of this house the spectators saw the ceremony to good advantage,
and one of them, styled, in 1848, "the venerable Mrs.
Moore, lived to point out the tree, and describe the glories
of the occasion, seventy-five years afterward. Fathers, who
were eyewitnesses standing beneath this tree, have told
the story to their sons, and those sons have not yet passed
away. There is no possibility that we are paying our vows
at a counterfeit shrine.
Great events which mark epochs in history, bestow an imperishable
dignity even upon the meanest objects with which they are
associated. When Washington drew his sword heneath the branches,
the great elm, thus distinguished above its fellows, passed
at once into history, henceforward to be known as the Washington
Elm.
``Under the brave old tree
Our fathers gathered in arms, and swore
They would follow the sign their banners bore,
And fight till the land was free." -- Holmes.
The elm was often honored by the presence of Washington,
who, it is said, had a platform built among the branches,
where, we may suppose, he used to ponder over the plans of
the campaign. The Continental army, born within the shade
of the old tree, overflowing the Common, converted Cambridge
into a fortified camp. Here, too, the flag of thirteen stripes
for the first time swung to the breeze.
These were the palmy days of the elm. When the tide of war
set away from New England, the Washington Elm fell into unmerited
neglect. The struggling patriots had no time for sentiment;
and when the war came to an end they were too busy in shaping
the conduct of the government, and in repairing their shattered
fortunes, to pay much attention to trees. It was not until
the great actors in those days were rapidly passing away,
that their descendants turned with an affectionate regard
to the enduring monuments inseparably associated with the
fathers. Among these, the Washington Elm deservedly holds
a high rank.
On the third of July, 1875, the citizens of Cambridge celebrated
the one hundredth anniversary of Washington's assuming the
command of the army. The old tree was the central figure of
the occasion. The American flag floated above the topmost
branches, and a profusion of smaller flags waved amid the
foliage. Never tree received a more enthusiastic ovation.
It is enclosed by a circular iron fence erected by the Reverend
Daniel Austin. Outside the fence, but under the branches,
stands a granite tablet erected by the city of Cambridge,
upon which is cut an inscription written by Longfellow: --
UNDER THIS TREE
WASHINGTON
FIRST TOOK COMMAND
OP THE AMERICAN ARMY,
JULY 30, 1775.
In 1850, it still retained its graceful proportions; its
great limbs were intact, and it showed few traces of age.
Within the past twenty-five years, it has been gradually breaking
up. In 1844, its girth, three feet from the ground, where
its circumference is least, was twelve feet two and a half
inches.
In 1884, at the same point, it measures fourteen feet one
inch; a gain so slight that the rings of annual growth must
be difficult to trace an evidence of waning vital force. The
grand subdivisions of the trunk are all sadly crippled; unsightly
bandages of zinc mask the progress of decay; the symptoms
of approaching dissolution are painfully evident, especially
in the winter season. In summer, the remaining vitality expends
itself in a host of branchlets which feather the limbs, and
give rise to a false impression of vigor.
Never has tree been cherished with greater care, but its
days are numbered. A few years more or less, and, like Penns
Treaty Elm and the famous Charter Oak, it will be numbered
with the things that were.
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