Part 2
Advancing northward by way of York road, we note on the grounds of J. Bertram Lippincott a fine white oak (quercus alba) with a trunk four feet in diameter and rising to a height of 80 feet. Here also is a specially fine white pine (pinus strobus), but there is hardly a place of importance in or near Germantown where there are not conspicuous, if not great, white pine trees. It is a characteristic of a white pine that it dominates wherever it is, and a plant which at a distance appears to be of great proportions, near is found to be disappointingly ordinary.
From “Solitude,” located east of York road, south of Fisher’s lane, the best plants have disappeared. There yet, however, is a catalpa (catalpa bignonioides), having a trunk three feet in diameter and a height of forty feet; a chestnut (castanea vesca), with a trunk of five feet in diameter and a height of 70 feet; a tulip poplar (liriodendron tulipifera), 4 feet in diameter and 100 feet in height; and a finely proportioned walnut (juglans nigra), 3 feet in diameter and 80 feet high.
These trees are surpassed by others elsewhere, the walnut in particular being excelled by like trees on Morton street near High street, on Main street above Tulpehocken street, at Nutwold on East Johnson street,--all superior plants, and by a wide branching tree of the same species overspreading a spring-house on the grounds of Frank Smyth, Washington lane, east of Chew street, a specimen 6 feet in diameter and 90 feet high, I think by all odds the finest in Germantown.
On Fisher’s lane east of York road is an exceedingly fine white poplar (populus alba), having a trunk 48 inches in diameter and a height of 80 feet; and farther east on the same lane, with its lands bordering those of “York Farm,”--the last American home of Fanny Kemble,--is Champlost, a beautiful estate occupied by Miss Fox, where grow some of our finest plants,--but it being situated beyond our proper limits, we shall with this mention pass it, to stop at a worthy neighbor.
Bordering York road, above Logan Station, is “Clearfield,” now “Fairfield,” a plantation which Henry Drinker purchased in 1794, and so named because “James Fisher has a place that has been called ‘Newington’ for many years, ’twas thought best to change the name,” wrote Elizabeth Drinker in her entertaining “journal.”
This plantation or farm was held for two years by the Drinkers, its mistress delighting in its occupation and rewards, recording its cherries ripe May 17; describing an odd tulip (tulipa gesneriana), which grew in its garden, a plant “with 8 leaves, which I look upon as a curiosity, never having seen one before with more than 6 leaves,” and continuing she noted, “a very beautiful place it is, how delighted and pleased would many women be with such a retreat.”
The beauty of Clearfield was appreciated by successive owners and care was taken for its preservation. Although a railroad has cut the place in sections, and its collections are depleted, it yet preserves sufficient of merit to attract the most superficial plant observer. Here at the old mile-stone--“2 M. to R. S., 4 M. to P.”--surrounded by high trees and ivy-covered, is its secluded mansion, which one approaches by box (buxus sempervirens) bordered walks, winding between borders of heavy shrubbery, and about are several conspicuous hemlock (tsuga canadensis), beech (fagus ferruginea), and button-ball (plantanus occidentalis) trees.
Near the upper entrance gate is a white pine, and beside the house a Norway spruce (picea excelsa), both of strange development, and as odd as any of the grotesque growths I have seen at Wildwood, N. J., and elsewhere on the Atlantic coast.
Here also is a curious Austrian pine (pinus Austriaca), with a depressed crown; an unusually fine specimen of Himalayan pine (pinus excelsa), 50 feet in height, second only to pines of the same species at William Rotch Wister’s, Wisteria avenue; at Justus Strawbridge’s, School House lane and Wissahickon avenue, and at Caspar Heft’s, Main street, near Manheim street, the latter a specimen which George Redles considers the best in our territory.
At “Fairfield” is a fine specimen of rare Japan cedar or cryptomeria (cryptomeria japonica), the acknowledged “queen of evergreens,” 25 feet in height; also a fine white oak (quercus alba), 80 feet in height; a white or silver birch (betula alba), 40 feet in height, the latter a fine plant, but not equal to specimens at Fern-hill and at E. W. Clark’s, Wissahickon avenue and School House lane. Also here, as reported by Philip C. Garrett, the present occupant of Fairfield, for Mrs. Anne DeB. Mears--“over the upper spring-house is an ancient and famous catalpa tree pictured in the horticultural journals, which still bears its beautiful crop of blossoms every year,” a tree yet vigorous, and near the mansion, between it and the road, is a fine cedar of Lebanon (cedrus libani), 50 feet in height. All these plants are prominent, and may be plainly seen from the road.
“Stenton,” once extending from Fisher’s lane to Nicetown lane, from Germantown road to York road, and situated from “Fairfield” to the west, has been shorn of much of its wealth. A. J. Downing, who visited it, thus describes it in “Landscape Gardening” of 1849: “Stenton, near Germantown, four miles from Philadelphia, is a fine old place, with many picturesque features. The farm consists of 700 acres, almost without division fences--admirably arranged--and remarkable for a grand old avenue of the hemlock spruce (abies canadensis), 110 years old, leading to a family cemetery of much sylvan beauty.”
This same “splendid avenue of hemlocks,” described later by Townsend Ward, is no more, and of interest at Stenton now is but a tulip poplar, a large plane tree (platanus occidentalis), a few persimmon trees (diospyrus virginiana) and a row of Lombardy poplars (populus dilatata), plants surpassed by many with us, and by two plants of exceptional merit, one a wide-spreading black walnut (juglans nigra), appearing to the south of the mansion, and the other a notable elm (ulmus Americana), having a trunk 4 feet in diameter and a top spreading at a height of 120 feet, a plant which on part of Stenton grounds disposed of, may now be seen in the yard of Dr. William H. Hickok, northeast corner of Eighteenth and Cayuga streets, a magnificent specimen said to have been mature in the days of James Logan and William Penn.
Near-by and north of Stenton is “The Cedars,” a green grove wherein Professor Stewardson Brown long dwelt, and where this gentleman informed me is a fine specimen of swamp magnolia (magnolia glauca), two rare yellow-flowering magnolias (magnolia fraseri), a lemon-scented variety of great beauty, by many considered our finest magnolia, and a small tree of the always rare cedar of Lebanon. Here also are several fine specimens of swamp cypress (taxodium distichium), familiarly known about Philadelphia as Bartram’s cypress.
Without exception, the finest grove of trees in Germantown is that in the midst of which “Wakefield,” a near neighbor of Stenton and Fairfield, is situated--a grove composed of immense juniper (juniperus virginiana), chestnut (castanea Americana), white oak (quercus alba), red oak (quercus rubra), and tulip poplar (liriodendron tulipifera) trees. Here is a green-flowering cucumber tree (magnolia acuminata), perfectly proportioned, having a trunk 2 feet in diameter and a height of 30 feet. Also here on the front lawn is a tulip poplar, measured by John Warr and George Redles, a tree 5 feet in diameter, ivy-covered from the ground to its first limb at 40 feet, and rising to a height of 130 feet, a noble specimen equal to celebrated relatives growing on the Virginian mountains, where the species is said to attain its greatest development; truly a tree, especially when in bloom, deserving Benjamin Franklin’s designation--“King of the American forests.”
Passing for the present “Little Wakefield,” we halt in lower Fisher’s lane to note a most interesting white oak (quercus alba), long familiar to me, but which I overlooked until directed again to it by George Redles. This is a rugged tree 4 feet in diameter and 60 feet high, perfectly formed, and growing on the top of a rock it has cleft in twain.
William E. S. Baker, in “Widow Seymour,” accurately locates this tree “between the Wakefield mills in Fisher’s Hollow, close by the bank of the Wingohocken creek, and at the curve of the lane.” “The immense flat-rock” which supports this tree is also associated with “Widow Seymour,” and those of a poetic temperament may here find much of interest. Advancing to the elevation at Stenton avenue and Fisher’s lane, we find before us at Mrs. M. H. Stiver’s two of our finest trees, one a white oak, the other a red oak, each 4 feet in diameter and 80 feet high; both plants perfectly shaped, and with huge wide-spreading limbs, covering an area equal to their height.
Other fine specimens of oak we have are a group of three fine white oaks at Old Oaks Cemetery on Wissahickon avenue; a red oak at Stewart A. Jellett’s “One Oak,” Pulaski avenue, near Apsley street; a beautiful tree on the grounds of Francis B. Reeves, Clapier street and McKean avenue; our most striking and picturesque oak at Judge F. Carroll Brewster’s, Manheim street, near Wissahickon avenue; a great white oak at Ivy Hill Cemetery, near Pennsylvania Railroad, a single finely developed specimen 5 feet in diameter and 100 feet high; and if not the largest, one of the finest, and certainly our most interesting oak planted by John Wister in 1803, and now adorning Vernon Park.
There are several fine trees on Fisher’s lane, but we shall now stop only at T. Charlton Henry’s place, where Alexander Lawson was long gardener, to record a century plant (agave Americana), which here bloomed a few years ago.
Retracing our steps through Wister’s woods, we pass a declivity on which once grew a celebrated memorial beech. This tree stood to the north of Fisher’s lane and Wakefield street, and through age and abuse came to its end in the year 1870. The Germantown Telegraph, January 29 of the named year, gave an account of this venerable and venerated tree. Near the earth its trunk was 3 feet in diameter, and “many very ancient scars and markings were on its surface, and among them within an escutcheon, deeply engraved and quite legible, were the initials D. L. W., 1771,” cut there by Daniel and Lowry Wister. It is a pleasure to note that this interesting work has been preserved, and is now among the treasures of “Grumblethorpe.”
Continuing through Wister’s wood, a place where its late owner loved to roam, we note near the upper spring an odd twin growth, to which Charles T. Macarthur, superintendent of the Germantown Gas Works near by, directed my attention. Here are two trees, one a red oak and the other a tulip poplar, which for several feet together grow as one, resembling a unity of two species, I discovered growing on Dark Run lane, near the Asylum pike, some years ago.
Following the Wingohocken Valley southward we round the point to “Mill” or “Valley creek,” and on our left find “Little Wakefield,” the home of Ellicott Fisher, where a number of chestnut, butternut and tulip poplar trees of fair proportions may be observed, but not any of which are equal to the lofty vigorous specimens appearing on “Wakefield’s” bank to the right, where sturdy oaks, not observable from the front, here impressively stand. “Belfield Homestead, with its famous coffee tree and lovely boulevard of maples,” now appears before us a perfect haven of rest, its most prominent plants thus referred to by W. E. S. Baker, standing conspicuous above a bordering wealth of vegetation.
From the valley we turn into Thorp’s lane, once a gem of rural beauty, but now sadly changed, to view a beautiful avenue of silver maples (acer dasycarpum) extending from the main entrance to the mansion where Fanny Kemble wrote “My children were born, by first and only American home.” In “Records of Later Life” the same gifted author, under date of 1837, notes: “The other day, for the first time, I explored my small future domain, which is bounded on the right by the high road, on the left by a not unromantic little mill-stream with bits of rock, and cedar bushes, and dams, and, I am sorry to say, a very picturesque, half-tumbled-down factory; on the north by fields and orchards of our neighbors, and another road; and on the south by a pretty, deep, shady lane, running from the high road to the above-mentioned factory. There are four pretty pasture meadows, and a very pretty piece of woodland, which coasting the stream and mill-dam, will, I foresee, become a favorite haunt of mine.”
“The Farm” or “Butler Place” yet contains many notable plants, though the “row of old acacia trees near the house” was removed, and “a double row of 200 trees planted along the side of the place” show wear. The latter, however, is of great interest to us, for in spite of an acknowledged “combined ignorance” a majority of these plants have lived, and from “York Farm” in 1874 Fanny Kemble wrote: “The trees I planted along the low enclosure hedge of Butler Place, 30 years ago, stretch their branches and throw their shadows half over the road which divides the places.”
Though exceedingly pleasurable, we may not linger here too long, and to all interested in Germantown and its associations, I suggest the reading of “Records of Later Life” and “Further Records,” both books of great interest, and mainly produced at “Butler Place” and “York Farm.”
There are many avenues of silver maples (acer dasycarpum) worthy of record with us, among them being one in Town Hall Park, another at the Pulaski avenue approach to “Fern-hill,” and also that leading to the Pinckney homestead, where Judge William D. Kelly once lived.
Other striking maple-lined avenues may be seen at Justus C. Strawbridge’s, School House lane and Wissahickon avenue; at Samuel Welsh’s, West School House lane, both of great beauty; also that of Garrett’s Hill on our main street, with others numerous; and on Norwood avenue, extending from Chestnut avenue to Sunset avenue, Chestnut Hill, is one beyond compare. At Butler Place the hemlock (tsuga canadensis) hedge continues of more than ordinary merit, but it is surpassed by a notable hedge of the same species at Thomas P. Galvin’s grounds, West Walnut lane, and by the remarkable hedges of “Fern-hill.” Other plants at Butler Place worthy of notice are a black walnut and a coffee tree, both of immense size and majestic proportions. Distributed throughout our territory are many large and beautiful coffee trees (gymnoclaudus canadensis). One of these may be seen at Dr. I. Pearson Willit’s, on West Walnut lane; another holds its place in Vernon Park; and a specially fine specimen stands before the Welsh mansion at Spring-Bank.
At Dr. George De Benneville’s “Silver Pine Farm” is a group of white pine (pinus strobus), which if not the largest is at least the most imposing one among us. These trees are nine in number, are about two feet in diameter trunk, rise to a height of from 80 to 100 feet, and their shattered arms are familiar to every frequenter of Branchtown by way of Green lane or York road. As these trees gave name to the place, so we may refer to a farm house-like structure which once stood where Masonic Hall now stands on Main street near St. Luke’s Church, a house in 1832 the home of Bronson Alcott, and the birthplace of Louisa M. Alcott--which from a group of trees before it, became known as “Silver Pine Cottage.”
In this same cottage, while rector of St. Luke’s Church, Rev. B. Wistar Morris also dwelt, and this in a measure may account for his love of “Oregon pines,” though his old-time neighbors say he was elected bishop for quite another reason.
Conspicuous specimens of white pine, in some respects our most impressive tree, may be seen at Loudoun, at Toland’s, at Henry’s, all near Naglee’s Hill; at Fern-hill, at George Blight’s and Dr. James Gardette’s on Wissahickon avenue; at Manheim, where there is a beautiful tree three feet in diameter and 90 feet high; at Carlton on Indian Queen lane; at Armstrong’s on Duy’s lane, and at almost every place on School House lane from John Alburger’s, near Greene street, to William Weightman’s, near the “Falls;” at Jacob A. Datz’s, Stenton avenue and Mill street, and at Alfred Williams’, near by; at Old School, County line and Limekiln pike; at Vollmer’s, Washington lane; at Upsala and Lutheran Seminary--indeed, so many and so generally distributed are these beautiful plants that it is needless to further enumerate.
At Butler Place is an odd white pine, which curiously at a height of 40 feet had its terminal bud destroyed, the result being the development of a trinity of side buds. In like manner there is also a remarkable specimen at Philip Guckes’ on West School House lane, a tree 2½ feet in diameter by 70 feet high. This tree’s terminal bud at 40 feet elevation having been destroyed, two side shoots were developed, which each sturdily rose to an additional height of 30 feet.
Without exception, the finest and most perfect white pine in our district is a plant growing on a knoll on “Perot’s Farm,” now Northwood Cemetery. This tree has a trunk 2½ feet in diameter, rises to a height of 70 feet, has a spread of 40 feet, and is vigorous, perfect and very beautiful.
At “Outalauna,” the residence of Joseph Wharton, is an exceedingly fine silver poplar (populus alba), and near at “Bonnenal Cottage,” the home of Mrs. Anne de Benneville Mears, are two immense buttonwood trees (platanus occidentalis) with trunks 4 feet in diameter, each with a height of 100 feet, and 40 feet spread. In “Old York Road,” Mrs. Mears, writing of “Bonnenal Cottage,” states “it was surrounded by a fine lawn and in front still stands one of the sycamore trees whose age is over 300 years, and its companion was planted by Dr. George De Benneville, Sr., in 1768.”
With us continue many notable buttonwood trees, although all our home trees are inferior to specimens growing in more favorable locations. In Case’s Botanical Index, Page 46, there was recorded in 1880 a buttonwood tree growing in Greene county, Indiana, having a trunk 16 feet in diameter, and which rose with a clear trunk 25 feet, the altitude reached being 160 feet, and plane trees much greater than this are known.
It would be futile to name all our worthy specimens, so I shall without mention pass many to locate a few which more directly appeal to us. We all may remember the buttonwood tree within the gate to our “Earthly Paradise,” and whose denuded trunk stands to remind us of days when settlers first took up ground on “side land lots.” Here with an additional story of recent growth is Naglee’s house, where James Logan for a season dwelt, a building like the “Rock House,” a venerable survivor and typical representative of the stone houses of early Germantown.
Recently we have lost one of two well-known sycamore trees at Wagner’s, and the tree continuing is but a reminder of its former greatness. Another interesting specimen on Main street is that on the grounds of William Heft, a tree 5½ feet in diameter and 80 feet high, one of the trees which changed the name of a public house once here from “Ye Roebuck Inn” to “Buttonwood Hotel.” Though often so asserted by over-zealous loyalists, these trees were not planted “by Philadelphia’s first mayor,” but by Andrew Garret, who carried them from the banks of the Schuylkill, and here set them in place, as “The Guide” some years ago instructed us. Andrew Garret may be remembered as an eccentric character, who during the latter part of the eighteenth century had a dwelling on Indian Queen lane, near the “Falls.” Here he lived alone, and by robbers was one night foully murdered, a sufficient warning, let us hope, to all of like preferment.
Other interesting buttonwood trees are located at the pump on Manheim street, where there is a specimen 4 feet in diameter by 80 feet high; at Manheim, near the club house, where is an odd-shaped specimen with a short trunk 4 feet in diameter, and awkwardly branching limbs rising to a height of 100 feet; at Friends’ grounds on Main street, where is a rare tree 4 feet in diameter by 60 feet high, and another specimen at Market Square, now only of interest because it was planted by Samuel B. Morris; at Dr. Ashton’s on West School House lane, where there is a majestic tree, and several others worthy a visit are in this immediate neighborhood. Rare specimens may also be seen at spring-house on Cresheim road, above Allen’s lane; at William Dewees spring-house at the bend in the upper Wissahickon, where grow two fine specimens; at “Spring Bank,” the residence of John Welsh, where is a perfect plant, 4 feet in diameter and 100 feet high; and two trees in Wissahickon avenue, near “Fern-hill” entrance, one 6 feet in diameter, 100 feet rise, with a spread of 80 feet, and the other about its equal, are the finest plane trees we have.
At National Cemetery, Haines street and Limekiln pike, are many beautiful trees, though but few of unusual size or rarity. Here are fair specimens of ginko (salisburia adiantifolia), but not equal to the ginkos of Edward Hacker, Wister street; Charles J. Wister, Main street; Lloyd Mifflin, Penn street; Benjamin H. Shoemaker, Mill street; and that of Alfred C. Harrison, at Thorpe’s lane, Chestnut Hill. Larch (larix Americana), but surpassed by the larch of David Pancoast at High and Baynton streets, by that of “Fairfield,” of “Upsala,” and several others. Silver birch and other trees of superior merit are here, and also here is a fine white pine, while in sight is a number of specimens of the same species at Middleton’s on Limekiln pike. Among the best plants at National Cemetery is an arbor vitae (thuja occidentalis) group of 12 feet in diameter spread and a 30-feet height, and an exceedingly fine specimen of retinospora plumosa.
At one time there were several fine trees on Christopher Ludwig’s farm, Haines street, near Chew street, but the best of these have disappeared, and there now remains but mediocre plane and walnut trees to halt us at the house of Washington’s doughty baker general, who spent here several years of his honest life, and who from his “labors” rests in St. Michael’s Lutheran Churchyard. Opposite “Ludwig Farm” is “Awbury,” containing the homes of John S. Haines, Thomas P. Cope, Francis R. Cope and other members of well-known families of like name, where are many rare and beautiful plants. From “High Street Station” which was, there extended to the Cope houses a rustic walk shaded by a double row of silver maples, and this shortened continues to remind one of the celebrated “walks” of Addison at Oxford and Milton at Cambridge. Shielding Haines street, east of Chew street, is a row of specially fine scarlet maple (acer rubrum) trees now in bloom, and at “John Haines’ gate” grow two fine elm trees, each having a trunk 2½ feet in diameter, a height of 60 feet and a spread of 80 feet, entirely covering the entrance to this most inviting place.
With us are several fine elm trees (ulmus Americana), one being on the grounds of Charles Edward Pancoast, East Johnson street; another is in the “Concord graveyard,” and two very beautiful weeping elms of the Galena type on Chew street, opposite Church street, shade the entrance to Meehans’ nurseries.