OCR Text |
Show DOUBT CAST UPON HISTORIC LEGEND Washington Elm Story Held Mere Tradition. A bulletin of the Arnold Arboretum casts doubt upon the legend that the so-called Washington elm, which until un-til 1926 stood on Cambridge common, com-mon, cast its shade upon George Washington when, on July 8, 1775, he took over from Gen. Artemas Ward the command of the Colonial forces; but especially It declares that the numerous cuttings which have been distributed as direct descendants de-scendants of the tree are of dubious ancestry. The tradition about the tree unfortunately unfor-tunately rests upon no trustworthy, Indisputable evidence, and it has been dlscreditel because a document called "The Diary of Dorothy Dudley," Dud-ley," published In 1S75, which purported pur-ported to give the testimony of an eye-witness to the event, proved to be a literary forgery. When the tree fell In 1926 it was estimated that in 1775 "the tree was only sixty-two years old and less than 28 Inches In diameter," and therefore was not so conspicuous as to be singled sin-gled out as the background of the historic scene. The fact is that nobody no-body who took part In the ceremony appreciated Its significance. The exchange ex-change of commands was effected with the utmost simplicity, with no prophetic sense of its importance in eyes of posterity. All that can be affirmed positively of the Washington Washing-ton elm is that it stood at or near the spot where Washington became the military leader of the army of the Revolution. It may or may not have been the identical tree. In these matters, however, we cannot can-not altogether reject a tradition handed down from sire to son. Edward Ed-ward Everett Hale, among many others, oth-ers, accepted the story of the Washington Wash-ington elm as authentic history and his belief in it went back to 1830 or beyond. He probably had it from his parents or grandparents, with whom it was no doubt a treasured anecdote, for Edward Everett's great-uncle, great-uncle, Nathan Hale, the Revolutionary Revolution-ary patriot, was stationed with his regiment at Cambridge in September, 1775, within three months of the time that Washington assumed command. It is not at all unlikely, then, that this ardent young soldier was one of the sponsors for the story told It to members of his family as a fact, during dur-ing the few brief months that remained re-mained to him of life. Boston Transcript |