294 ARBOR DA Y MANUAL. 



Arranged for the "ARBOR DAY MANUAL." 



HISTORIC TREES. 



THE following list includes some of the more prominent trees that have been 

 consecrated by the presence of eminent personages, or by some conspic- 

 uous event in the history of our country. 



They all have a place in our national history, and are inseparable from it because 

 they were so consecrated. A knowledge of the events associated with their 

 memories cannot but engender patriotic emotions in the breast of every true 

 American citizen. 



1. One of the best known trees in American history is the Charter Oak which 

 stood in Hartford, Conn., until 1856, when it was blown down. This tree once 

 preserved the written guarantee of the liberties of the then infant colony of 

 Connecticut. In 1687 Governor Andros, whom King James had sent across the 

 sea to be Governor of all New England, appeared before the Connecticut 

 Assembly, then in session in Hartford, and demanded the Colony's charter. 

 Tradition tells us that the charter was brought in and laid upon the table. In 

 an instant all lights were extinguished and the room was wrapped in total dark- 

 ness. Not a word was spoken. The candles were again lighted, but the char- 

 ter had mysteriously disappeared ; and though Sir Edmund searched diligently 

 for it, his search was in vain. Captain James Wadsworth had seized the 

 precious charter and concealed it in a hollow in the trunk of this friendly tree. 



2. All strangers who visit Cambridge, Massachusetts, look with interest upon 

 the remnants of the venerable Elm tree under which Washington sat, when on 

 the 3rd of July, 1775, he assumed command of the Colonial army. It stands in 

 the center of a great public thoroughfare, its trunk protected by an iron fence 

 from injury by passing vehicles, which for more than a century have turned out 

 for this tree. 



3. "The Gary Tree," planted by Alice and Poebe Gary, As these sisters were 

 returning from school one day they found a small tree in the road, and carry- 

 ing it to the opposite side they dug out the earth with sticks and their hands, 

 and planted it. When these two children had grown to womanhood and 

 removed to New York city, they never returned to their old home without 

 paying a visit to the tree they had planted. That tree is the large and beautiful 

 Sycamore, which one sees in passing along the Hamilton turnpike from College 

 Hill to Mount Pleasant, Hamilton county, Ohio. 



4. A tree interesting from its association with the General of the American 

 Army, is the Washington Oak at Fishkill. Washington's headquarters re- 

 mained on the west bank of the Hudson, between Newburgh and New Windsor, 

 from the spring of 1782, to August 18, 1783; and during this time he crossed 

 the river frequently for the purpose of visiting the troops in camp upon Fish- 

 kill Plain, near the village of that name. The most convenient landing-place 

 on the east bank was upon a long, low point of land formed to the north of the 

 mouth of Fishkill creek, and here, according to the tradition of the locality, 

 under two large Oak trees, Washington always mounted and dismounted from 

 his horse as he started and returned from the camp. The tree is a Chestnut 



