12 



MICHir.AX ROADS AND FORESTS/ 



HISTORIC TREES 



OF AMERICA. 



The first Protestant church service in Amer- 

 ica was under the trees at Jamestown, and the 

 first church bell rung in the West was the one 

 that Father Junipero Serra tied to an arching 

 oak bough at San Diego. The first agricul- 

 tural fair in America was held under a giant 

 elm at Pittsfield, Mass., the same tree under 

 which the men of that neighborhood formed 

 when they marched away to the War of 1812. 

 When Connecticut's charter was in danger of 

 seizure it was hidden in a hollow oak. 

 Because the Scotch had "dool trfees," or 

 "grief trees," on which they hung their enem- 

 ies in reality or in effigy, early colonists here 

 must needs have something of the sort. So 

 they chose to set up liberty trees in New 

 England. 



The Scotch had sycamores, the New Eng- 

 land colonists chose elms, which were made to 

 serve many purposes. Under_ them meetings 

 were held, from their boughs the bodies of 

 offenders dangled, and in their shade drunk- 

 ards, liars and thieves sat in the stocks. 



One tree on Boston common had a dark his- 

 tory. It stood near the long path that Dr. 

 Holmes immortalized in his "Autocrat of the 

 Breakfast Table," and on it were hanged Mar- 

 garet Jones and Anne Hibbins, two witches of 

 early days, and Mary Dyer, the Quakeress. 

 Under it Mrs. Oliver was flogged for "re- 

 proaching magistrates." 



In 1876 this old tree fell in a windstorm, and 

 a detachment of police had to be called to keep 

 the souvenir collectors from cutting it to 

 pieces. An offshoot of this tree, about forty 

 years old, is to take its place. 



The dean of America's historic trees is the 

 Washington elm of Cambridge. "Under this 

 tree Washington first took command of the 

 American Army, July 3, 1775," reads the in- 

 scription compiled by Longfellow and en- 

 graved on a tablet. Some say that the first 

 evangelist in America, George Whitefield, 

 preached under this same tree. Twice has the 

 lightning struck it both times in the same 

 place and no doubt its days are now num- 

 bered. 



One of the famous peace oaks that stood in 

 front of John Eliot's old meeting house at 

 Natick is said to be still in existence. It was 

 brought to the missionary by the Indians he 

 had taught, and planted by the as an expres- 

 sion of peace. At Dedham another oak is 

 pointed out as the pulpit once used by George 

 Fox, the Quaker, when a meeting house was 

 denied him. 



Penn's famous treaty tree fell in a gale near- 

 ly a hundred years ago. Its prominence was 

 so marked in its early days that the English 

 soldiers placed a special guard around it during 

 the Revolution. After it was felled by a gale 

 in 1810, a great part of the tree was sent to 

 the old Penn family seat at Stoke, near Wind- 

 sor, England, where it is still preserved. 



"Jane McCrea, 1777," is an inscription that 

 was seen for a long while on a large pine tree 

 near Fort Edward on the Hudson. This tree 

 was the silent witness of the death of the girl 

 whose scalp was taken by an Indian to Bur- 

 goyne's camp and sold, whereat her lover, who 

 recognized it, deserted the army that would 

 allow such practices. 



In New York the megaphone men on the 

 tourist cars will point out a group of two or 

 three sour gum trees in the neighborhood of 

 One Hundred and Fifty-fifth street and Fifth 

 avenue and tell you that these are all that are 

 left of the thirteen trees that Alexander Ham- 

 ilton planted in honor of the original colonies. 

 Near One Hundred and Fifty-ninth street 

 there are said to be some of the cypress trees 

 of the old Jumel estate still standing, they 

 having been a present to Mr. Jumel from Na- 

 poleon, brought from Egypt. 



New Haven has been known for many gen- 



erations as the City of Elms, the first having 

 been brought there from Hampden by William j 

 Cooper, and given to the Rev. Mr. Pierpont. 

 On the green stands an elm known as the 

 Franklin elm. having been bought by Thad- 

 deiis Beecher from one Jerry Allen for a "pint 

 of rum and some trifles," and planted on the 

 day that Franklin died. 



I- or many long years a mulberry tree stood 



to mark the place where the Calverts and the 



Indiars nvide the treaty that gave Maryland to 



! th'e Call; ilic-. Ir.-.t it fell fifty years ago. 



I Church furniture was made of it for use in the 



ancient town of St. 'lary's, and the Bishop of 



Maryland has a gavel made from a bit of it. 



The strength of the tree is almost incredible. 

 At Jamestown a sycamore tree grew up be- 

 tween the graves of Commissary Blair and his 

 wife. It carried one-third of Mrs. Blair's tomb 

 three feet above the surface, holding it fast in a 

 crotch, while the roots and the body of the 

 tree shattered into tiny bits-'the stone slab that 

 marked the commissary's tomb. 



On the eastern border of Tennessee, far up 

 in the mountains, there stood for many years 

 a tree bearing this legend "D. Boon killed a 

 Bar on this tree year 1760." It was a rough 

 record of the prowess of a 26-year-old hunter, 

 and was a familiar landmark to travelers and 

 hunters for many years. 



Further inland, near the banks of the Cum- 

 berland, at Bledsoe's Lick, an old hollow tree 

 stood for many years. More than 100 years 

 ago a man named Spencer spent the winter 

 in it. 



His house was not so pretentious as that of 

 the California settler who, having neither time 

 nor money to build, found a hollow redwood 

 and immediately converted it into a two-story 

 dwelling. He had a living room downstairs 

 and a bedroom above, and lived there several 

 years w-ith his family. Not far away from him 

 stood the largest tree in the world, the Abra- 

 ham Lincoln, once called the Hermit, measur- 

 ing 18 feet in diameter and 320 feet in height. 



The live oaks of California are a feature in 

 themselves, the largest measuring 10 feet in 

 diameter, being in Tulare county. Those on 

 the campus of the University grounds at Berk- 

 eley are especially noted for their beauty and 

 also attract attention from the fact that some 

 of them exemplify modern methods of tree 

 salvation and protection. Where decay has 

 set in the foresters have carefully cut out the 

 diseased spots in the same way that dentists 

 treat teeth, putting in a filling of cement to 

 prevent further decay. 



Further down the coast, in Santa Barbara 

 county, is the largest grapevine in the world. 

 It is called La Para Grande and was planted 

 sixty-three years ago by Joaquina Lugodi 

 Ayala, a Spanish woman. The trunk of the 

 vine measures 9 feet 9 inches in circumfer- 

 ence. Though pruned every year, its branches 

 cover a quarter of an acre and it takes sixty 

 large posts to hold up the trellis on which it 

 spreads. The present owner, Jacob Wilson, 

 has been offered $6,000 for it. 



A once noted tree of the Middle West was 

 the Miami apple tree that stood at the junction 

 of the St. Mary and St. Joseph rivers. It must j 

 have sprung from seed dropped by a French 

 priest or trader long ago. In a wigwam under 

 this tree the Miami chief. Wild Cat, was born. 



Other apple trees were found down the 

 valleys by the first settlers, though they were 

 not of a kind indigenous to the soil. Many 

 believed them to have been planted by a crazy 

 man known as "Apple Seed Johnny," who 

 came to the settlements east of the Alleghen- 

 ies every fall, collected great bags full of 

 apple seeds from the cider mills and then dis- 

 appeared over the western mountains with 

 them. 



He had an idea that as apples were of great 

 benefit to man the trees should be planted in 

 time to be ready for the settlers who would 

 one day populate the valley. When the tide 

 of homcseekers finally turned that way there 

 was great astonishment and rejoicing over the 



waiting trees, rich in flower and fruit. Such 

 practical foresight can rarely be found in the 

 hobbies of crazy men. 



In Audubon Park, New Orleans, stand the 

 famous live oaks that helped make the beauty 

 of the spot long ago when it was the property 

 of M. DC Bore. Audubon studied under these 

 oaks when a guest on the plantation. 



In Charleston stands a famous magnolia un- 

 der which a treaty was signed so long ago no- 

 one knows what it was about. On the road 

 from Orange to Fredericksburg, Va., near 

 Rliodesville, is the oak under which the Mar- 

 quis de Lafayette's tent was pitched as he sup- 

 ervised the building of the military road dur- 

 ing the Revolution. For many years Pontiac's- 

 memorial tree was pointed out to visitors in 

 Detroit, and near King's Mountain in North 

 Carolina is the Tory tulip tree, on whose lower 

 branches two Tories were hanged after the 

 battle of King's Mountain. 



The Botanical Gardens in Washington are 

 rich in trees that have associations, as almost 

 every man of prominence in political and liter- 

 ary affairs has planted oiic. A cypress from 

 the seed that Mrs. Jefferson Davis brought 

 looks across the walk to <i beech that Simmer, 

 the abolitionist, was instrumental in having put 

 out. The memorial trees of presidents and 

 potentates of divergent views wave their long 

 bqugh's toward each other and forget the past 

 in their present effort to make the world beau- 

 tiful. Among them is an elm that is an off- 

 shoot of one- that Washington planted and 1 

 which had to be moved when the Capitol was 

 enlarged. 



In an article on "Slash Burning in the Lake 

 States," in. the Forestry Quarterly, E. G. 

 Chaney says that nine-tenths of the fires in 

 the woods start in the debris left by lumber- 

 men. When the slashings are burned and the 

 forest floors kept clean, there is little chance 

 for a dangerous lire, and if a fire starts it is. 

 easily controlled. The lumberman says that 

 brush burning costs too much money and he 

 would rather run the cluuices of completing 

 his logging operations and getting out before 

 the lire gets in. The principal benefit derived 1 

 from slash burning, namely, the almost com- 

 plete restocking of the land by natural regen- 

 eration, has no influence with him because he- 

 believes that White and Norway pine will not 

 follow themselves. A trip through the 

 eminent forest reserve at Cass Lake, where 

 slash burning has been carried on for four; 

 years, cannot but convince that these varieties 

 of .pine reproduce themselves readily if given 

 half a chance. It is only where fire has killed 

 all the White and Norway pine seed that jack 

 pine has taken possession of the soil. 



One solution of the problem lies in the cord- 

 wood market. When the lumberman has fin-l 

 ished, there is the making of many cords o 

 fire-wood from the tops, broken logs, dcfec 

 live trees, etc. This would clean up eight 

 tenths of the material that supplies the fire on 

 cut-over land and the cost of disposing of the 

 remainder would be trivial. In some districts 

 the fire-wood would yield a profit, and in most 

 cases it would pay the cost of handling. Even 

 if sold at a slight loss the cut-over land woulc 1 

 be greatly enhanced in value because of the 

 lessened danger from fire and the assurance O' 

 good regeneration. 



"Why would it not be a good proposition foi 

 timber land owners or th'e fire wardens of 'dif- 

 ferent states?" Mr. Cheney asks. "It would fur- 

 nish to the fire warden a cheap means of fin 

 protection and in many instances a revenue tc 

 help out the deficiencies in other places. Thi; 

 question is, in my opinion, the most import 

 ant forestry problem in this region today, in 

 suring, as it does, if a few seed trees are left 

 the re-stocking of the land with valuabli 

 species." 



Hi Hand township. Ottawa county, will ex 

 pend $4,200 for road improvements this season 

 of which $1,800 is to be used for repairs. 



