Massachusetts History

From “THE HISTORIC TREES OF MASSACHUSETTS”  1919

 The road over which Washington passed on his way to Cambridge is still the favorite highway between Springfield and Worcester, and between Worcester and Boston. It has now become the popular automobile route between those cities, and many a beautiful tree greets the traveler with its grateful shade. After passing the old oaks at Wayside Inn, going towards the west, you enter the town of Marlborough. A large sign informs you that this town is the seventh in shoe production in the state, and that it is “clean, healthy and prosperous.” Near the end of West Main street, on the lawn of the Stevens place stands an old elm tree, the dimensions of which are quite extraordinary: circumference at breast height 17 feet, height 74 feet, spread of branches 100 feet. The roots on the southerly side rise from the ground like an abutment, increasing the circumference at one foot from the ground to 29 feet. The branches are unusually large, and in a pocket of earth which has collected among them at the top of the trunk, a currant bush has been bearing fruit for sixty years. This fact is vouched for by Mr. William Arnold who worked for William Gibbon, a former owner of the property on which the tree stands, when a boy.

The tree is historic on account of its connection with the old house just behind it, and its age dates back as far, at least, as 1740, when it was much prized by a Tory minister of Marlboro, the Rev. Aaron Smith. “The house was erected by the town for the Rev. Aaron Smith upon his settlement here in 1740. At the time of the Revolution, this man was suspected of Tory sentiments, and one night two loaded muskets were fired into his window, probably as a threat or warning by individuals who, actuated by the spirit of the time, gave vent to their detestation.

To anyone who could possibly make harder the struggle of a feeble province, almost without arms and ammunition of war against the then most powerful nation of the earth. The bullets fired lodged in a beam, and were extracted and preserved by Mr. Samuel Gibbon. Rev. Smith, becoming less popular, and because of impaired voice resigned the ministry here and in 1778 removed to Wayland where he died three years later. In 1784, Mr. Samuel Gibbon came with his wife from Dedham and bought this old house, improving it in many ways. He was a trader, a prominent citizen and many years a Justice of the Peace. He also represented the town in the Legislature. Samuel Gibbon willed the old homestead to his son who cared for his father to his death. The property eventually passed into the hands of William Gibbon’s daughter Mary, who married Frank Howe, and, in 1903, the place was purchased by Dr. Ralph E. Stevens who with his family resides in this, one of Marlboro’s oldest landmarks.”

When the writer visited the property for the purpose of taking measurements of the tree he was shown one of the old musketballs referred to. It was of lead, about as large as a medium-sized hickory nut, and would unquestionably have produced a more ragged wound, had it struck the Rev. Smith,than the steel- jacketed variety of modern times. Judging from the angle at which the bullets entered the beam they were fired from a point a few feet to the right of the tree.