The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1881-05-18
THE WEEPING WILLOW.
How n Product OF the Garden of Eden Inn
migrated to This Country.
lHarper's Young Pe0ple.1

1
You have seen and admired the weeping
willow tree-the Salix Babylonica-upon
which the captive Hebrews hung their harps
when they sat down by the rivers of Baby
| Ion and "wept when they remembered Zion.''
| 1t is a native of the Garden of Eden, and not
of America, and will tell you how it immi-
grated to this country.
More than $50 years ago merchant lost
his fortune. He went TO Smyrna, a seaside
city IN Asia Minor, to recover it. Alexander
Pope, one of the great poets of England, was
the merchants warm friend, and sympa-
thized with him in his misfortunes
Soon after the merchantarrivedin Smyrna
he sent to Pope, as present, box of dried
| figs. AT that time the poet had built a
beautiful villa at Twickenham, on the bank
| OF the river Thames, and was adjoining it
with trees, shrubbery and Towering plants.
On opening the box of figs Pope discov-
| cred in it small twig of the tree 1t was
stranger to him. AS it came from the East.
he planted the twig in the ground near the
edge of 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, probably
from the bank of one of 1.-The rivers of Bah
ylon," which fiourishes best along the border
of water courses.
This little twig grew vigorously, and in a
few years it became large tree, spreading
wide its branches and dropping, graceful
sprays and winning the inspiration of the
poets friends as well as strangers. 1t be-
came the ancestor of all the weeping-wil-
lows in England.
There was a rebellion in the English
American colonies in 1775. British troops
were sent to Boston to put down the insur-
rection. Their leaders expected to end it in
a few weeks after their arrival. Some young
officers brought fshing-tackle with them 10
nFaa 10 70 low .rt l. r
war. Others came to settle on the confis-
Gated lands of the ''rebels"
Among the latter was young officer on
the staff of General Howe. He brought with
him, wrapped in oil silk, twig from Pope's
weeping willow at Twickenham, which he
intended to plant on some stream watering
his American estate.
Washington commanded an army before
Boston which kept the British imprisoned
in that city 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 flag,
with dispatches for General Howe He be-
came acquainted with the young officer who
had the willow 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 fight 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 es-
tate in Virginia, where it grew and -four
ished, and became parent of all the weeI
ing willows IN the United States
Sometime after the war, General Horatio
Gates of the Revolution settled on the
Rose Hill Farm" on New York Island,
and at the entrance to a lane which led from
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 man.
sion, built of wood, and two stories in hight
stood near the corner of Twenty-seventh
street and Second avenue, where l saw it
consumed by fire in 1915. The tree which
grew from the twlg planted at the entrance
to Gates lane remained until comparatively
a few years ago. 1t stood on the northeast
corner of Third avenue and Twenty-second
street. 1t was a direct descendant, in the
third generation, of Pope's willow, planted
at Twickenham about 1922