in its trunk that will shelter two or three men from an ordinary 

 storm." 



Mr. Webster Dix, the owner of the sycamore, has promised that 

 it shall be carefully preserved. 



The Lafayette Sycamore 



Among the historic landmarks connected with the Battle of the 

 Brandywine, visitors to the region are shown the house, on Baltimore 

 Pike, in Birmingham township, Delaware County, Penn., which Gen- 

 eral Lafayette occupied as his headquarters, just before the battle, or 

 early in September, 1777. 



Close by the house stands a fine old sycamore, measuring twenty- 

 two feet in circumference at a short distance above ground level, still 

 healthy and vigorous, a living memorial of the brave but unequal 

 struggle, when Washington with 11,000 men attempted to check 

 Howe's advance to Philadelphia with nearly double that number. 



At the close of the day, Washington retired to Chester, and (so 

 the story runs), Lafayette, badly wounded in the leg, stood at the 

 old Third Street bridge in that town, endeavoring to rally the retreat- 

 ing troops. It is said that he was carried back to headquarters, and 

 laid under the old sycamore ; but it is also stated and probably on good 

 authority, that he never returned there, but was cared for in Chester. 

 And in that town three places contend for the honor of having been 

 the spot where his wounds were treated! 



The Princeton Sycamores 



In 1765, the year preceding the Stamp Act Repeal, an order was 

 given to plant a number of sycamores in front of the residence of the 

 President of the College at Princeton, N. J. It is possible that the 

 order was not carried out till the following year, and perhaps for this 

 reason these trees have always been associated with the Stamp Act. 

 Two of them are still standing, on Nassau Street, the old house being 

 now occupied by the Dean. They are splendid specimens, about 

 ninety feet tall, and three feet in diameter at six feet above the ground. 



Sycamores of Camp Frelinghuysen 



Other sycamores, in Newark, N. J., lay claim to historic interest 

 as belonging to "Camp Frelinghuysen," the drill ground for New 

 Jersey Volunteers, 1862-1865. Men who trained here gave their lives 

 on every battlefield from Antietam to Appomattox. "One of the trees 

 is known as the Colonial Plane, and is honored as a tree under which 

 Washington and his army passed, in 1776. Another, the Academy 

 Plane, witnessed the burning of the First Academy, in 1780, when a 

 party of British soldiers crossed the frozen river from New York, and 

 took the town by surprise. 



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