Strange Old Trees in Boston and Beyond

If you're ever near Boston Common or at the Massachusetts Statehouse you might notice these two unusual looking trees. They're heavily pruned and flank the memorial to Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Regiment.

I once thought these trees were planted as part of the memorial, which was completed in 1897. I was wrong. They actually were planted by John Hancock, probably in 1772, which makes them around 248 years old. These trees are OLD, and are definitely the oldest ones on Boston Common.

John Hancock (he of the famous signature) once lived in a mansion that stood where the Statehouse is now. Apparently he wanted to improve his view, so he planted two English elms across from his home. The trees did well, and when the Shaw Memorial was erected a century later the builders made sure not to damage them. The memorial actually sits on top of a large stone vault which was built to house the roots of the trees.

There are very few English elm trees left in North America, and these two are allegedly the oldest English elms in the Western Hemisphere. Elms used to be widespread in American cities but sadly were decimated in the 20th century but Dutch elm disease, a fungal infection spread by an invasive beetle. The trees planted by John Hancock were protected from the disease because their roots are encased in the stone vault.

Elm trees can live for up to 400 years (!) and arborists are determined to keep these two alive for as long as possible. One method they use is heavy pruning, which prevents damage from heavy winds or ice and also encourages the trunk to stay thick and healthy. They've also filled in hollow parts of their trunks with bricks to stabilize the tree. The trees may look odd but they are very healthy.

Surprisingly they are not the oldest trees in Boston. I think that title belongs to a bonsai tree in Arnold Arboretum which was planted in Japan in 1737 and later brought to Massachusetts. But even that bonsai is young compared to a pear tree planted by the Puritan leader John Endecott in the mid-1600s which is still alive in Danvers, Massachusetts today.

All the trees I've mentioned so far are domestic and were planted by humans. There are wild trees that are even older. The oldest tree in Massachusetts is a 450+ year old hemlock in the Mohawk Trail State Forest. Trees of similar ages can also be found in Sherburne, Vermont and New Hebron, New Hampshire. Most of the original trees in this region have been cut down but there are still a few pockets of old growth forest left.

I don't have much else to say. Trees are amazing beings. They're good for the atmosphere, good for animals and birds, and good for our mental health. Maybe some day the tree in your backyard will be hundreds of years old!

Ghosts of the Great Elm and The Witching Elm

Many years ago, a great elm tree used to dominate the landscape of Boston Common. It was so large is was just referred to as the Great Elm.

According to Wikipedia, at its height the tree was nearly sixty-five feet high and the canopy of its branches spread out over eighty feet. It was so big that it had a hollow a child could climb into. That's a really big tree!

The tree eventually fell in a winter storm in 1876, but it was estimated to be over 250 years old at its demise. Even in the 1830s the tree was surrounded by a fence to protect it, and a plaque nearby proclaimed that the tree had been in existence since before the English settlers arrived. I don't know if that can be proven, but I like the idea of one last piece of the older, wilder world surviving into the Industrial era.

A 19th century photo of the Great Elm (from Wikipedia)

A lot of stories and legends gathered around this "vegetable patriarch," as it is called it the 1838 book The Boston Common, or Rural Walks in Cities. For example, Samuel Barber claims that Benjamin Franklin used to play under the tree while tending his family's cattle on the Common. Quaint and patriotic!

Not all the legends are quite so charming. The Common wasn't just used for cattle-grazing; it was also used for executions. Executions were a public affair in the Colonial era, and large crowds would turn out to watch. This was the era before television, and executions were often festive (if gruesome) sources of entertainment. For the common people they were a chance to take a break from work, while the government regarded public executions as a good deterrent to future law-breakers.

Murderers and other criminals were executed on the Common, but the definition of "criminal" three hundred years ago was much broader than it is today. Dozens of rebellious Indians were publicly executed, as were four witches and several religious dissenters like Quakers. On some occasions gallows were constructed to do the dirty deed, but in other cases large sturdy trees were used. We do know that Mary Dyer, the famous religious dissident, was hanged from a tree on the Common in 1660 after her final return to Boston from exile.

We don't know exactly which of the many trees on the Common were used for hangings, but tradition assigns the grim role to the Great Elm. It certainly was big enough.

A plaque on Boston Common commemorates the spot where the Great Elm once stood, but ghosts of those unlucky people hanged on its branches may still linger. According to my friend Sam Baltrusis's book Ghosts of Boston: Haunts of the Hub (2012), tenants in a nearby commercial building reported hearing clanking chains in their empty basement. Perhaps they were psychic echoes of the shackles used to restrain doomed criminals as they were led to their deaths? More significantly, the ghost of a woman in Puritan attire has been sighted near the Great Elm site. The ghost weeps and wails before disappearing. Baltrusis speculates that it might be the ghost of the Irish witch Goody Glover, who was hanged on the Common, but there unfortunately are many other possible candidates.

Now to shift gears, from ghost stories to young adult fiction. The Great Elm, or something very much like it, reappears in C.N. Crawford's new young adult novel The Witching Elm. The book's young hero, Tobias Corvin, lives in an alternate universe's version of Boston. The city is called Maremount, and it was founded by Algonquian and English magicians.

In our world's history Maremount, or Merrymount, was a free-loving, multicultural settlement destroyed by the Pilgrims in the early 1600s. In The Witching Elm Maremount is a place where magic is real, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have its problems. Only the upper classes are allowed to practice magic, and as the novel begins Maremount's forces of oppression, led by the mysterious Rawhead, are cleansing the city of illegal magicians and witches. Tobias's family is under suspicion, and for safety Tobias is transformed into a raven and sent to an even stranger city in another dimension: modern-day Boston, Massachusetts.

After regaining his human form Tobias takes shelter at Mather Academy, a prestigious old boarding school located near Boston Common. But things at the school are not quite what they seem. Why are students turning into withered corpses? What's the connection between the Academy, the Salem witches, and Nathaniel Hawthorne? What's up with the weird jewelry some students wear?

After Rawhead's minions appear in Boston to find Tobias, a new tree mysteriously grows at the site of the Great Elm. And then the executions begin...

I really enjoyed reading The Witching Elm, which was sent to me by the authors. (C.N. Crawford is really two people, Christine and Nick Crawford.)  I appreciated the way elements of New England folklore were woven into the book to make a compelling mystery. It's sort of like Harry Potter meets The House of Seven Gables meets this blog. If you like any of those things, or are just a fan of well-written YA fantasy, I'd recommend you purchase a copy. Don't read it too late at night, though, because things do get a little gruesome for the students and faculty at Mather Academy...