New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1909-04-18
,-1rW UUEN LOSING ELMS.
ror;oge Glories of University City
Fast Disappearing.

~ 1T. sons and to many others who visit the
9-s;tv town TO he edited by football con-
The trees are dying as the result of
=, an the part Of the municipal authorities,
= coon The picturesque streets may be as bald
gnu aI,,,r,Is Of the class OF 90. 1t is esti-
- that elm beetles and other insects have
---t-ove5 half Of the citys 5000 trees. and,
-s,, the value Of a tree at $50, there is
loss If 81 10000 But no monetary caicu-
-, can represent the damage to beauty, and
- ranlacement Of the stately foliage cannot be
-,,,1r,sbed in q few years, or even genera
tons.
: Henry Graves. Of the Yale School Of For
- has begun a movement TO rebuke the city
.s-,inistration for its neglect and to save the
IS which remain. While beetles and bugs
v,ere ravaging the foliage last summer nothing
vas done by the politicians Of the local Board
q Public Works At last, In the fall, the trees
were sprayed. and then hundreds of fine speci-
mems had been killed. Professor Graves and
the citizens behind him trying to have the
rare Of the trees placed in the hands Of COM
retent park commission instead OF the politics
ridden Board Of Public Works.
Next 10 the university itself the trees Of New
Haven have been the city's chief glory since the
town was founded. in 1886. Trees We're planted
around the central green at once, and in 100
Jared Elliott warned the coIonists that the
trees must be protected from savage beasts
The elms which have lined the green and the
central streets were planted in 1856. according,
10 the Chronicles OF New Haven Green by
Henry T Blake
Professor Franklin Bowditch Dexter. of Yale.
points out in his paper, New Haven in I7Si,'r
that Elm street took its name from the patri-
T7l9r+a7 in Of the hons,
Rev. DR.. Pierpont which remained till d few
years ago. Thu Rev DR.. Leonard Bacon. on, OF
the most famous pastors in the history of the
Center Church Of New Haven, thus told of the
planting of the first tree in front of the Pierpont
residence:
"As the people were bringing in their free
viii offerings Of one kind and another to COM
pete and furnish the building, one man "a poor
Earishioner, William Cooper by name), desiring
10 do something for the object and having MOTH
ing else TO offer, brought on his shoulder from
the farms two elm saplings and planted them
before the door Of the minister's house Soma
forty years afterward Q726) Jonathan Edwards.
hen soon to take rank in the intellectual world
sHh Locke and Liebnitz. spoke words of
Mingled love and piety in the ear of Saral,
RerpOnt under their shade
Mr. Blake's Chronicles" show that a syster
ste planting Of trees throughout the city
teok place in 1853 Professor Dexter thinks
that the large cottonwood tree which has stood
II trent OF the First Methodist Church in Elm,
street is probably d relic Of that famous plant
ing This tree has succumbed to recent neglect
and is now dead. Professor Dexter saws that
Two hundred and fifty buttonwood and elm
trees were set out in 1853 around the Green"
The Rev Samuel Peters says in his General
Of ipE,fs
don that New Haven was the most beautiful
town in New England, il not in America h
suioglzed the trees Of the town, but descend
ants OF the Dissenters who founded New Ha-
ven record that New Haven was far less favor
ably Impressed with the old Tory parson than
The Rev. MI Peters was with New Haven. The
Rev ManasSeh Cutler wrote in similar vein
Of his visit to New Haven in 1857 He said
that the trees were large, and added much to
The towns beauty" He made special mention
OF the long rows across the centre of the Green.
The Incorporation Of the city in 1884 gave i'm
petus to q planting movement in connection
With the Identifying of the city although
when the British invaded it in 1879 their gen
e1G- Garth looked at the trees and wrote home
uat the town is too pretty TO burn" The
great planting Of New Haven trees, however.
vas the one Of 1892. This came in response to
an order Of the Common Council, and James
hHlhouse, after whom HilIhouse avenue was
named, the chief promoter Atwater's his
tory says Of this planting:
The great planting of the eIms had its in
oeplon in the order issued from the Common