HISTORIC TREES 153 



the place where a great concourse of people came 

 together near the house of John Boune to hear the 

 great Fox, founder of the Quaker sect, preach. 

 This was in 1672, when the evangelist was making 

 a brief tour of some of the American colonies. One 

 of these most memorable trees fell in September, 

 1841. The other was reported dead but still stand- 

 ing in 1861, aged about four hundred years. 



What historic trees there are on the great cen- 

 tral plains between the Mississippi and the Rockies 

 are mostly cottonwoods. Such is a fine specimen 

 in the capitol grounds at Topeka, Kansas. It 

 sprang from a seed in 1869 and has now attained a 

 height of eighty-five feet and a spread of one hun- 

 dred feet. Its trunk measures twelve feet in cir- 

 cumference. This tree is well beloved by all loyal 

 "jayhawkers," especially as it was the mustering 

 and distributing place for the Twentieth Regiment 

 of Kansas Volunteers which made such a fine record 

 in the Philippines. 



It is usually difficult enough to obtain an ac- 

 curate record of a single historic tree without delv- 

 ing into leafy family history. Yet fifty years ago 

 circumstances made the genealogy of a certain 

 weeping willow of New York City so apparent that 

 its line has been traced clear back to Asia. The 

 story all turns upon the thoughtfulness of a friend 



