The Washington Elm Tradition
Samuel F. Batchelder
Cambridge Historical Society
Volume 18, Page 26
27 October 1925

The Last of the Washington Elms. This photograph comes from the Leslie Jones Collection at the Boston Public Library, via Digital Commonwealth.*
For many years the Washington Elm had been slowly dying, deprived of almost all moisture by the water-tight paving of the street around it and by the lowering of the subterranean “water table” through the construction of sewers, etc., which also cut seriously into its roots. As early as 1874, S. A. Drake alludes to “its crippled branches swathed in bandages; its scars where, after holding aloft for a century their outstretched arms, limb after limb has fallen nerveless and decayed.”2 Like an ancient martyr, the more it suffered the more famous it became. Desperate if somewhat unintelligent efforts were made to preserve it by the city authorities. More and more dead branches were cut off, the wounds smeared with tar, the hollows filled with cement, the remaining limbs braced with iron bands and rods, until it became a truly pitiable object.
Finally, on October 26, 1923, the whole wretched ruin was accidently pulled over by workmen trying to remove another dead branch, and crashed against the iron railing surrounding it. Examination showed that the trunk was hopelessly rotted below the ground, a mere mass of punk: the wonder was that it had stood so long. Experts from the Bussey Institution counted two hundred and two annual rings in a section of its trunk; so that allowing for the last few years when growth had evidently ceased entirely it must have been at least two hundred and ten years old.
Comments by J. L. Bell, Friday, April 01, 2016, Boston 1775
*The webpage dates the image as “ca. 1917–1934,” but we can be more specific. In his essay “The Washington Elm Tradition”
Finally, on October 26, 1923, the whole wretched ruin was accidentally pulled over by workmen trying to remove another dead branch, and crashed against the iron railing surrounding it. Examination showed that the trunk was hopelessly rotted below the ground, a mere mass of punk: the wonder was that it had stood so long.
The photographs must have been taken shortly afterward as people in Cambridge debated whether the patriotic symbol had been felled by Communists. (Seriously.)
Here are two more photographs from the series. The traffic island where the tree stood was removed, a metal plate left in the road to mark the exact spot.
The granite tablet that had stood at the foot of the elm bore the inscription — said to be from the pen of Henry W. Longfellow:
WASHINGTON
FIRST TOOK COMMAND
OF THE
AMERICAN ARMY
JULY 3D, 1775
Footnotes
- 1855, the date given on page 48 of The Cambridge of 1896, seems to be an error — perhaps refers to some other tree in the line.
- Historic Fields and Mansions of Middlesex, 267.