Press enter after choosing selection

Fall Of An Historical Relic

Fall Of An Historical Relic image
Parent Issue
Day
11
Month
June
Year
1886
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

Tho (amona Pontlac tree neai Detroit, which fliccV aliout u year ngo otter several earsof declino, and has since stooda leafh"-s skeleton, lias heen cut down. Thus ends the long career of the historie old sentinel that wns a silent witness of the Parent Creek massacre of July 81, lTtïi. The removal of this trees destroys the most celebrated tree In Michigan and one of the most famous in the Union. The tree was a magnifieent whitewood and in its last years figured in a landscape wonderfully altered from the damp ravine down which it, look on the dark night of the Pontiac massacre, nearly 123 years ago. Parent's Creek, subsequently called Bloody Run, from the sanëuinary event of which the old tree was the only living survivor, has long been hut u reminiacence, It has been degraded by modern civiliation fnun an historical stream to a very ordinary sewer, and llows as an open brook only through Klmwood cemetery. The bridge at which the hotterst of tho fight ocburred had been destroyed, tho raviue had been fllled up and even Detroit river had moved further away. Perhaps the next most historical tree in the vicinage of Detroit is the Hamtramck tree which grew by the side of tho house of Col. John Francia Bamtramck and the grateful shadow of whose foliago thus feil n pon the first American commandant of Detroit. It is a gigantic elm near the1 water's edge and is the property of William B. Wesson on whose farm it grows. After the Hamtramck tree come the survivors of the pear tree planted by the Kienen settlers of 1719. These have grown to an immense sie with their age and most of them still bear fruit. They seem good for any number of years y et, "and if they are left to fall of their own volition into the sere and yellow leaf and are not sacrificed to the march of improvement. they'iWill probably turn into their third c.'iiinry still in the ring but slightly disabled. 11. E. Roberts in his "City of the Straits" recalls the fact that when he carne here, sixty years ago, "the product of fruit was in excess of the demand for the consuni]tion, and apples of excellent quality sold at lo" cenia a hushel, unt.il emigration (rom tho East commenced about 1830. Kome of the pear trees still remain, bearIng fruit, a siiiiíle tree producing seventyfive or eiffhtj bushels in a season. They have attainea immense growth, resembling forest oaks, their tnmks three (eet from the ground measnring more than eight t iet in oircumference. They are the only living thing commemorative of the cultivation of theeoil in this new world. v. H. Coyle wrote a poem on these trees in the year 1849 - when they ware 100 years old. Itclosed; "Live on, old trees, in your hule, green o ge. Long, long m y your shulows last, With vuur blussomed boughs and golden fruit. Loved emblems of the past."

Article

Subjects
Old News
Ann Arbor Democrat