The last “witness tree” across the street from Abraham Lincoln’s home in Springfield was destroyed by last week’s storm.
Excerpt from this Chicago Tribune story:
There was no indication that the American linden across the street from Abraham Lincoln’s home in Springfield was any different than any of the other 270 trees that populate the four-block National Historic Site along Eighth Street.
On Friday, a cloud of irritated bees swarmed the linden’s trunk about 20 feet up, where wind from strong storms the night before had snapped it. Yellow caution tape surrounded the former treetop, now resting in the street and front yard of the Dean House, named for the mother and son who planted the linden tree in the 1850s when they were Lincoln’s neighbors.
As visitors skirted the dying tree, few realized they were seeing the remains of history. The linden was what park officials termed a “witness tree” — one that was alive when Lincoln lived in the home across the street, one he could gaze out upon from the front windows and porch of his home.
“When Lincoln came out his front door, it would be one of the first things he saw,” said John Popolis, museum technician at the National Park Service site.
The tree was the last one in the park that officials had positively identified as being there at the same time as the future president. It was the last remaining of four lindens planted by the Deans in the 1850s. A ring count on a cross section of one of the four that was cut down in 1993 dated them to 1856 or ’57, according to Susan Haake, curator and acting chief of interpretation at the Lincoln Home site.
Nobody was on site about 7:30 or 8 p.m. Thursday night when the witness tree came down. The city had shut down as the city endured a second day of severe weather that brought nine confirmed tornadoes to central Illinois June 10 and 11, according to the National Weather Service.
Haake said the toppled tree was discovered early Friday morning by a maintenance worker.
“It’s a sad day for everyone here,” Haake said.
