Historic leaves, volume 5, April, 1906 - January, 1907

‘ [5] is itself a sun-burst, and tree-tops land the dome's pure arc together lead the mind along to the green and gold of the common, whose “contiguity of shade” is only separated from the Granary's by the beautiful spire of Park-street church. As one faces the solid and glorious greenery of the common, shot underneath with streaks of yellow sunshine on the slants of the hillsides, one agrees with Professor Sargent that the room in the Subway was well lost to save every rood of this oasis, magnificent heritage from the old Boston of our pride, when sentiment was ever first and the material considerations second.’

Perhaps the most famous of all the Boston trees no longer in existence was the old ‘Liberty tree,’ near the tavern of the same name, the latter still standing in 1883. The junction of Essex and Washington streets, which was in Revolutionary days known as Hanover square, was marked by a number of splendid elms, the largest of which was first called the ‘great tree.’ It was not till 1765 that the name ‘Liberty tree’ was given it, at a patriotic celebration in honor of the expected repeal of the Stamp Act. It had already figured in many demonstrations of revolutionary feeling. On the repeal of the Stamp Act, in 1766, all the trees in Hanover square were decorated to assist in the jubilant celebration which followed; and at that time a plate was affixed to the ‘Liberty tree’; it read, ‘This tree was planted in 1646, and pruned by order of the Sons of Liberty, February 14, 1766.’ This would prove the tree was one of the very earliest in Boston. The grand old patriarch witnessed and inspired many stirring scenes after that, during Revolutionary times, for the anti-tea party was organized here November 3, 1773, and the Sons of Liberty always met beneath its branches, or in the tavern close by, until it was cut down by a party of roistering British in 1775, when it supplied the Tories with fourteen cords of wood. The trees in the Granary Burying Ground were planted in 1830; those on Copp's Hill in 1843.

Leaving Boston, our first thought turns naturally toward historic Cambridge, where we shall find many old trees. The first of these to pass before our mind's eye is the Washington elm. A monument set at its base bears this inscription, written