Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/40

 20 Sloan's Architectural Review and Builders' Journal. [July, Fairman's, 11th of 2d month, 1682. This was before the treaty. Robert Fairman, of London, in a letter of IT 11, speaks of the house at the ' Treaty Tree.'"— Watson. The eccentric but truthful Benjamin Lay, who came to Pennsylvania in 1731, aged fiftjr-four, within less than fifty years of the Treaty, always assured Judge Richard Peters, David H. Conjaig- ham, and their boy companions, that the great Elm was the identical Treaty-tree. He probably was acquainted with indi- viduals who knew the fact. It lived in vigorous health until March 3d, 1810, when it was blown down by a violent storm. " The blow was not deemed generally prevalent, or strong. In its case the root was wrenched and the trunk broken off. It fell on Saturday night, and on Sunday morning hundreds of people visited it. In its form it was re- markably wide-spread, but not lofty ; its main branch inclining towards the river, measured one hundred and fifty feet in length. The tree, such as it was in 1808, was very accurately drawn, upon the spot by Thomas Birch ; and the large engraving, executed, after Birch, by -Seymour, gives the true appearance of every visible limb. Whilst it stood, the Methodists and Baptists often held their summer meetings under its shade. The fallen tree finely revived, in a sucker of it, on the premises of the Pennsylvania Hospital on the vacant lot, exactly in the middle of the present Linden street. It stood a while in the paved street, and was cut down in 1841. It had been placed there by Messrs. Coates and Brown, managers. There was another sucker growing on the original spot, amid the lumber of the shipyard, a dozen years ago. It was then fifteen feet high, and might have been larger but for ne- glect and abuse. I was about taking- measures to protect it, when I ascertained it to be hopelessly injured." — John F. Watson.* •Annals of Philadelphia, 2d edition, 2d vol., 8 vo.; Philadelphia, Elijah Thomas, 1857. After the tree was uprooted, the trunk measured twenty-four (24) feet in circumference, or eight (8) feet diam- eter ; and by counting the annual growth, its age was ascertained to be two hundred and eighty-three (283) years, having been one hundred and fifty- five (155) years old at the time of the treaty. The Indians are not re- corded as ever reverting to this tree in their reminiscences, and this has been seized upon as unsettling the credence of common report, on account of their addiction in their speeches to local association ; but the traditions of the whites concerning the great Elm of Shackamaxon, as the Treaty -tree, has been continuous, uniform, and persistent. The Indians did not mention either Treaty-ground or Treaty-tree, probably on account of the extreme unusuality of the Treaty itself ; and the perfect satisfactoriness of its fulfilment, upon the part of Penn and the two following generations of proprietary administra- tions, needing no aid from extraneouF natural objects, or oratorical accessories. Benjamin West, the painter, however, (see below,) says : " This tree was held in the highest veneration by the original inhabitants of my native country, the first settlers, and their descendants." West's own grandfather was a partici- pant, one of the five dignified individ- uals present with William Penn in the solemnities of the Treaty. In his pic- ture of the Treaty, the painter has given a likeness of his ancestor in the impos- ing group of patriarchs. The family tradition here would be very reliable. The wood was preserved for the manu- facture of relics, many of which here- after, no doubt, from the want of a little authenticating care upon the part of their owners, will be deemed most apochryphal. Samuel Breck, Esq., per- sonally took from the tree, as it lay in ruins, a limb, which he gave to Captain Watson, of the British Navy, to deposit in the Museum of Exeter, England. A large piece of it was sent by our valued