plants, flowers and shrubs in said garden be sent to each of the other 

 colleges in the State." Within one year, the trustees of Columbia 

 College were required to deliver at least one healthy plant of each kind 

 to each college that applied for it. None appear to have applied, 

 however, and in 1819, or soon afterward, the trees and other plants 

 of the garden were presented to the New York Hospital, v/hich had 

 purchased large property at Bloomingdale, now Morningside 

 Heights. The acceptance of the gift appears in the Hospital Report 

 for 1821. 



Long before Columbia University bought the site, the fine old 

 English yews were conspicuous on the front lawn of the hospital 

 grounds. When the estate passed into its new ownership, they seemed 

 even more appropriately placed in academic surroundings. They 

 have been described as "monuments to the past and a memorial of a 

 man whose efforts have borne greater fruition in the Botanic Garden 

 which the city now possesses than even he could have hoped." 



The Haddon Yews 



Longfellow's beautiful poem "Elizabeth," has immortalized one 

 of the earliest and most unique romances of the New World. A 

 modern house was long ago erected upon the site of the old Haddon 

 Homestead, at Haddonfield, N. J., the scene of the story, but today, 

 if fortunate enough to have the permission of its owner, one may visit 

 the old place with its historic setting, associated with the days of some 

 of the first Quaker settlers. 



Elizabeth Haddon was the daughter of a wealthy Englishman, a. 

 member of the Society of Friends, and the holder of property in New 

 Jersey, on the site of the future town of Haddonfield. Firmly con- 

 vinced that she was called by the "Inner Light," to leave her English 

 home and friends and cast in her lot in the New World, she obtained 

 her father's consent to cross the seas to America and settle on his land 

 there. One stands aghast at the courage and determination of the 

 quiet Quaker maiden of nineteen, but the Divine call was to be obeyed, 

 and in 1701 she carried out her purpose, bringing with her, among 

 other cherished possessions, a bucket of slips from yew trees in the 

 home garden. 



These she planted in front of her dwelling in the v/ilds of "the 

 Jerseys," and taking kindly to their new quarters, they grew, and 

 flourished for many a year, their fame increasing with time and with 

 growth of popular interest in historic landmarks. Two of the yews 

 still ornament the old garden. Many a tale they might tell, to an 

 ear that could hear, of the coming ^nd going of men and women of 

 note in the colonies, for the Haddon Homestead became a centre of 

 hospitality. And there were many guests of humbler origin, for at 

 the back of the dwelling-house stiU stands the little building where 

 the mistress of the home made and distributed medicines and cordials 

 to the Indians. 



69 



