The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1881-06-23
THE WEEPING WILLOW.
How Product OF the Garden of Eden Emf
grated TO this Country.

How Product OF the Garden of Eden Emf
grated to this Country.
You have seen and admired the weep
ing willow tree-the Salix Babylonica
upon which the captive Hebrews
hung their harps when they sat down
by the rivers of Babylon and "wept
when they remembered Zion" It is a
native of the Garden of Eden and not of
America, and 1 will tell you how it emf
grated to this country.
More than 150 years ago a merchant
lost his fortune. He went to SMYRNA
a seaside city in Asia Minor, to recover
1T. Alexander Pope, one of the great
poets of England, was the merchants
warm friend, and sympathized with him
in his misfortunes.
Soon after the merchant arrived in
Smyrna he sent to Pope, as q present,
a box of dried figs. At that time the
poet had built a beautiful villa at
Ywickenham, on the bank of the river
Thames, and was adorning it with trees,
shruobery and towering plants.
On opening the box of figs Pope dis
covered in it small twig of the tree.
It wa stranger to him. As it me
from the East he plan ed the twig in
the ground near the edge of the river,
close by h S villa. The spot accid emily
chosen for the planting was favorable
to its growth, for the twig was from the
weeping willow ire POSSIBLY from the
bank one of "the ri ers of Babylon
which fiourishes best along the bor-
ders of water courses.
This little twig grew vigorously, and
in few years it became large tree,
spreading wide its branches and droop-
ing, graceful sprays, and winning the
ms 1ratiou of the poets friends as well
as strangers. It became the ancestor of
al the we ping willow inEi gland.
There was rebellion in the English
American colonies in 1875. British
troops were sent to Boston to put down
the insurrection. Their leaders ex-
pected to end it in q few weeks after
their arrival. Some young offict rs
brought fishing tackl- with them to en-
able them to ENJOY sport after the brief
war. Others came to settle on the con-
fsc ted land of the "rebels."
Among the latter was a young officer
on the staff of General Howe. He
brought with him, wrapped in oil silk,
a twig from Pope's weeping willow 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 i'm
prisoned in that city long time against
their will. On his staff was his stepson,
John Parke Curtis, who frequently went
to the British headquarters, under the
protection of flag, with dispatches for
General Howe. He became acquainted
with the young officer who had the will
low twig, and they became friends.
Instead of crushing the rebellion in
six weeks" the British army at Boston,
at the end of an imprisonment Of nine
months, was glad to fly by sea, for life
and liberty, to Halifax. Long before
that flight the British subaltern, salts
fed that he should never have an estate
in America to adorn, gave his carefully
preserved willow twig to young Curtis,
who planted it in Abingdon, his estate
in Virginia, where it grew and -four
ished, and became parent of all the
weeping willows in the United States.
Some time after the war General
Horatio Gates, of the Revolution, set
tied on the Rose Hill farm, on New
York island, and at the entrance to q
lane which led from a country road to
his house he planted 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 man
sion, built of wood, and two stories in
height, stood near the corner OF
Twenty-seventh street and Second ave.
nue., where saw it consumed by fire in
1915. The tree, which grew from the
twig planted at the entrance to Gates
lane, remained until comparatively q
few years ago. 1t stood on the north
east corner of Third avenue and Twenty.
second street. 1t was direct descend
ant, in the third generetion, of Pope's
willow, planted at Twickenham about
1722.-BemsOn j. Losing, an Hmpel'.
Young People.