Oldest trees bear witness to centuries of life, growth, death in Erie County
Roots of some oak, maple, beech, hickory, tulip and other trees began spreading in local soil before Erie was even incorporated as a city in 1851. Their branches shaded mourners at funerals for Erie County residents killed in the Civil War, World War I, World War II. Their trunks stood firm as the waters of the 1915 Mill Creek flood rushed past. Their leaves continued to grow as new mansions, more attractions, wider roads and bigger stores were built all around the area.
Decades, even centuries have passed and these trees have grown on, witnessing as the city, the county, the world around them changed.
"Imagine what we would have seen if we'd stood here for 200 years," said Dale Luthringer, an Erie native and environmental education specialist at Cook Forest State Park. That park in Clarion County has old growth forest with trees that are several hundred years old. Erie County has its old trees, too.
In general, Luthringer said, a witness tree is one that is both old and supposedly saw a historic event. There's a sycamore next to a bridge at Antietam National Battlefield in Maryland that was photographed just days after the bloody 1862 Civil War battle there. A white oak that was growing during both the First and Second Battles of Manassas in 1861 and 1862 in Virginia. Civil War battlefields are among the best-known locations of witness trees, but they can grow in public parks and cemeteries, near old homes and barns, in undisturbed patches of woods and even along city streets.
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Identifying witness trees
Verifying witness trees isn't always easy. Big doesn't necessarily mean old, as a young tree could have had some really good growth years and an older tree could have had some slow growth years. Size also can vary by species.
"Some trees show their age, some don't, just like people," Luthringer said.
A tree could show up in a photograph taken after a historic event, like the Civil War battles, or during construction of a building or of a family gathered for a reunion that can be traced to a specific year.
"Sometimes it's only conjecture but sometimes we have direct evidence," Luthringer said.
He said it's not uncommon for trees to be as old as old houses. Erie's Cochran Homestead, at 2942 Myrtle St., was built in 1801. It is now owned by Community Shelter Services and used for tenants in the agency's Homeward Bound Permanent Housing Program. CSS maintenance workers said they believe a tree in the front yard could be at least as old as the house and possibly much older.
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Aside from a photo or similar evidence, ways to tell the age of a tree are to cut it down and count the rings or drill into it just past the center and pull out a sample of rings to count, Luthringer said. However, some trees are too big or too rotted to core or the risk of the procedure isn't considered worth the potential harm to the tree.
Witness trees in Erie County
A comprehensive list of local witness trees doesn't exist. One arborist might have seen an old tree that another expert has never heard about. Trees fall or get cut down. They grow on public and private property and sometimes can be overshadowed by the buildings around them.
On the west side of upper Peach Street, just north of Best Buy, a big oak sits on land well below the road level, making the tree's height deceptive. There was once a house nearby but it's gone now. While the oak's age isn't known, it's certainly seen the development of Peach Street from rural to business, including the widening of Route 19 and the construction of not just Best Buy but also dozens of other stores as well as restaurants, hotels and more.
Other lone witness trees are certainly out there in Erie County. But most people the Erie Times-News spoke with agreed that one place you can go to see multiple old trees is the Erie Cemetery.
Erie Cemetery
The 75-acre property at 2116 Chestnut St. was dedicated in 1851, according to a history on the Erie Cemetery Association's website.
"Erie Cemetery is a good place to see old trees," Luthringer said.
Ken Fromknecht, a certified arborist who lives in Millcreek Township, said there are trees in the cemetery that were seedlings or saplings when Erie was incorporated as a city on April 14, 1851. Some might have even started growing around the time the state Legislature passed an act establishing a town at Presque Isle named Erie on April 18, 1795.
Fromknecht and Luthringer said the cemetery's oldest residents include oak and tulip trees. Clarke Kuebler, general manager of the Erie Cemetery Association, said a variety of old trees are spread throughout the entire cemetery.
"Some of these trees certainly date back to probably 250 years old," he said.
Kuebler said the cemetery works with an arborist to trim and care for all its trees.
"Unfortunately, a lot of our trees are coming to the end of their expected lifetime," he said.
In 2018, one of the cemetery's oldest trees, an oak, came down. Its exact age unknown, the tree had a circumference of just under 200 inches.
It and others would have been growing when Alexander W. Brewster was the first person buried there in 1851. They would have been there for the burials of what the cemetery calls its "famous residents," including Daniel Dobbins, who died in 1856 and had helped oversee the building of Oliver Hazard Perry's fleet that won the 1813 Battle of Lake Erie; Brig. Gen. Strong Vincent, who was mortally wounded in the 1863 Civil War battle of Gettysburg; Sarah A. Reed, who died in 1934 and was the great-granddaughter of Erie's first settlers and the namesake of the Sarah A. Reed Children's Center; and Harry T. Burleigh, an internationally known baritone, arranger and composer who was buried in White Plains, New York, in 1949, but was reinterred in Erie Cemetery in 1994.
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Kuebler said there are people who go to Erie Cemetery just to walk among the magnificent old trees there.
"It's almost like a monument you're standing next to," he said about being beside an old cemetery tree.
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Asbury Woods
The Grandfather Tree at Asbury Woods, 4105 Asbury Road, is a red oak located on the Grandfather Loop Trail behind the Andrew J. Conner Nature Center. The tree has an old sign on it estimating its age at 150, but officials believe it's a little older than that now. At an estimated 160 to 175 years old, it has witnessed development of that part of Millcreek Township as well as visits to the nature center by many schoolchildren over the years. The Grandfather Tree is marked on the Asbury Woods trail map, which can be found at asburywoods.org/visit/trails.
Some other trees at Asbury Woods are nearer to the century mark.
According to a history on the Asbury Woods website, a tract of land that had become known as Asbury Farm was purchased by Otto Behrend in 1920. "He set about reforesting a portion of the farm fields while continuing to run it as a working farm. ... Many of the trees planted by Otto remain standing on the parcel of land surrounding the Nature Center," the site states. When Behrend died, he left behind 100 acres, a cottage and barn, fields and orchards to be used to teach students about the natural world.
Watson-Curtze Mansion/Hagen History Center
Constructed in 1891 and 1892 at the corner of Erie's West Sixth and Chestnut streets was a home that would become known as the Watson-Curtze Mansion. A garden was added, including a ginkgo tree that was probably about 10 years old at the time, according to a Hagen History Center blog item about the tree. The house and tree are now part of the history center.
After publication, Hagen History Center staff provided information about the age of the tree, based on a memory from Tom Hagen, who grew up across the street from the mansion. Hagen told center staff the tree was planted in the 1940s and is about 80 years old.
"This is a monster tree," Kevin Thomas, a history center docent and master gardener, said. He estimated the ginkgo's height at "easily 50 feet."
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As it grew, the ginkgo would have seen other large houses of wealthy Erie families on the stretch of West Sixth Street often referred to as Millionaires' Row.
Glenwood Park
Erie's Glenwood Park area, near West 38th Street and Glenwood Park Avenue, is likely home to trees, including oaks, that Luthringer said could be around three centuries old.
Vern Peterson, executive director of the Lake Erie Arboretum at Frontier Park, said there are probably some trees that were in the Glenwood area at the time of the Mill Creek flood. In August 1915, Mill Creek overflowed its banks in the Glenwood Hills area and water tore to the north through Erie, killing at least 30 people and destroying hundreds of buildings, according to historical accounts.
Neither man was aware of any specific witness tree in the Glenwood area.
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Scott Park
Luthringer and Peterson also named Scott Park as a likely site for old trees. This land north of West Sixth Street and east of Peninsula Drive, above the western tip of Presque Isle Bay, could have cucumber trees and oaks that sprung up centuries ago.
As such, they would have been there when the nearby peninsula became Presque State Park in 1921; when Waldameer Park originated in 1896 on the west side of Peninsula Drive; and in 1874 when the head of Presque Isle Bay was a summer resort known as The Head or Massassauga Point, with three hotels, a general store and more.
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Shriners Hospitals for Children-Erie
The age of two massive white oaks on the south side of what is now West Eighth Street isn't known for sure. But whether they've passed half a century or a full century or two, their branches have reached out over decades toward countless children seeking help. The trees are on the grounds of what opened in 1927 as Zem Zem Hospital for Crippled Children and transitioned from an inpatient hospital to an ambulatory care facility in 2012.
"They're very majestic trees," said Mary Jane Antoon, clinic administrator at Shriners Children's Erie, 1645 W. Eighth St.
Antoon said another employee there estimated the trees are more than 80 years old. Fromknecht, an arborist, thought one might be more than 200 years old.
"That is a pretty massive tree," he said about the one right along West Eighth Street. "It's just a beautiful tree."
Only a couple feet of pavement separate that oak from the white line at the street's edge. The other tree is farther back from the road, near an employee parking lot.
Whether they have grown for eight decades or 20, they are special trees that have borne witness to the work done by Shriners and to the growth of Erie. And someone, at some point, at least recognized the significance of the oak beside the street.
Just west of that tree, below a school zone sign, is another with a red arrow pointing toward the tree. Red letters on the white rectangle proclaim "NO PARKING ANY TIME, HISTORIC TREE."
Contact Dana Massing at dmassing@timesnews.com. Follow her on Twitter @ETNmassing.
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Erie County's oldest trees bear witness to life, growth, death
