Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 August 1884 — The Weeping Willow. [ARTICLE]

The Weeping Willow.

More than 150 years ago, a merchant lost his fortune. He went to a seaside city of Asia Minor, to recover it Alexander Pope, one of the great poets of England, was the merchant’s warm friend, and sympathized with him in his misfortune. Soon after the merchant arrived in Smyrna he sent to Pope, as a present, a box of dried figs. At that time the poet had built a beautiful villa at Twickenham, on the bank of the Thames, and was adorning it with trees, shrubbery and flowering trees. On opening the box of figs Pope discovered in it a small twig of the tree. It was a stranger to him. , As it came from the East he planted it in the ground near the river, close by his villa. The spot accidentally chosen for the planting was favorable to its growth, for the twig was from the weeping willow tree —possibly from the bank of one of “ the rivers of Babylon ” —■ which flourishes best along the borders of water courses.

This little twig grew vigorously, and, in a few years, it became a large tree, spreading wide its branches and drooping, graceful sprays, and winning the admiration of the poet’s friends as well as strangers. It became the ancestor of all the weeping willow trees in England. There was a rebellion in the EnglishAmerican Colonies in 1775. British troops were sent to Boston to put down the insurrection. Then 1 leaders expected it to end in a few w’eeks after their arrival. Some young officers brought fishing tackle with them to enable them to enjoy sport after their brief war. Others came to settle on the confiscated lands of the “rebels. 1 ’ Among the latter was a young officer on the staff of Gen. Howe. He brought with him, wrapped in oiled silk, a twig from Pope’s weeping willow tree at Twickenham, which he intended to plant on some stream watering his American estate. Washington commanded an army be-fore-Boston which kept the British imprisoned in that city a long time against their will. On his staff was his stepson, John Parke Custis.who frequently went to the British headquarters, under the protection of a flag, with dispatches for Gen. Howe. He became acquainted with the young officer who nad the willow twig, and they became fast friends. Instead of “crushing the rebellion in six weeks,” the British army at Boston, at the end of an imprisonment of nine months were glad to fly by sea for life and liberty to Halifax. Long before that flight the British subaltern, satisfied that he should never have an estate in America to adorn, gave his carefully preserved willow twig to young Custis, who planted it at Abingdon, his estate in Virginia, Where it grew and flourished, and became a parent of all the weeping willows in the United States.

Some time after the war Gen. Horatio Gates, of the Revolution, settled on t£e “Rose Hill Farm,” on New York Island, and at the entrance to a lane which led from a country road to his house, he planted a twig from the vigorous "willow at Abingdon, which he had brought with him. That country road is now Third avenue and the lane is Twenty-second street. Gates’ mansion, built of wood, and two stories in height, stood near the corner of Twen-ty-seventh street and Second avenue, where I saw it consumed by fire in 1815. The tree which grew from the twig planted at the entrance to Gates’ lane remained until comparatively a few years ago. It stood on the northeast corner of Third avenue and Twentysecond street. It was a direct descendant, in the third generation, of Pope’s willow, planted at Twickenham about 1722.