600-year-old Tree of New Jersey

Living History

A Few Existential Thoughts

Living history objects are strange and their flaws are ignored in favor of romance. This tree lived when Washington was alive and it will be gone soon. Legend has it George Washington picnicked under the tree. A little hard to believe considering another historical marker notes that Washington was in town in January of 1777. Who picnics in January?

I have walked by it a thousand times in my life. It never looked quite alive to me. Metal poles held up branches and the leaves were never impressive. In the 1920s, they filled part of the trunk with cement. All around it are gravestones. Some bear the names of my ancestors and others are broken beyond legibility.

I don't know how I feel about the tree going away because it hasn't happened yet. It has been there since my great-great (I don't know how many) grandfather fought in the Revolution. I know it will hit me when I walk by and see the landscape forever changed by the absence of the symbolic tree.

Proud tree hugger (literally, figuratively, accusatively) that I am, I love the grand presence of nature. Nothing will replace it. The graveyard has sheltered the tree 600 years. Dead soldiers have guarded for 200 years. The absence will remain long after I'm gone.

Other trees remain but none of them hold the same symbolic position in my mind. A set piece from the American Revolution is being torn down because it's dead. I don't like that symbol.