CHAPTER XI 



White Willows in Pennsylvania— Pope's Willow— -Napoleon Willows — 

 The Inwood Tulip Tree — The Stockton Catalpas — Hamilton's 

 Trees — The Treaty Tree of Grosse He — The Osage Orange. 



White Willows in Pennsylvania 



Benjamin Franklin has left us an interesting account of the 

 introduction into Pennsylvania of the white willow, a handsome 

 foreign tree which has now become naturalized. 



Noticing a sprout on a willow basket that had been taken from 

 a ship docking at a wharf on the Delaware, at Philadelphia, he gave 

 the twig to Debby Norris, who planted it on her father's estate, Fair- 

 hill, near the city. It took kindly to the new environment, and became 

 the progenitor of the white willows which are now so numerous. 



PoPE^s Willow 



The introduction of the *veeping willow, originally an oriental 

 tree, first into Fngland and thence into America, forms an interesting 

 bit of history. 



A box of figs from Smyrna was sent to Lady Suffolk, of London, 

 and her friend, Alexander Pope, who happened to be present, noticed 

 an unfamiliar, green twig bound about the package. "This is some- 

 thing we are not accustomed to here," he said. "I will plant it in the 

 garden of my home on the Thames and see what it.produces." So the 

 twig found its way to the grounds of his villa at Twickenham, Eng- 

 land, and a graceful weeping willow was the result. 



Long afterward, a British officer, starting for America during 

 the Revolutionary War, took a shoot from the tree, intending to 

 transplant it to the estate he expected to receive there when the Iloyal 

 Arms should have won success. When the war terminated differently 

 from his expectation, he presented the twig to John Park Custis, 

 Washington's step-son, who planted it on his estate, in Virginia. 



In 1790, General Gates transferred a shoot from it to his farm 

 on Manhattan Island, N. Y., where it flourished and became known 

 as "Gates' weeping willow tree." As New York City spread and 

 business crept up to the site of his farm at Third Avenue and 22nd 

 Street, the tree, well advanced in years, was felled in 1860. 



A similar fate overtook the parent tree. Pope's willow, at Twicken- 

 ham, which was cut down by a subsequent owner of the property 

 because he was annoyed by the number of visitors, who came to admire 

 it and carry away bits of wood as souvenirs. 



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