USM community mourns loss of 200-year-old tree
PORTLAND, Maine — The moment of silence was deafening.
Aaron Witham stood, hand upon the massive, fallen trunk, head bowed in reverence, leading a small group of mourners in honoring a two-century-old tree on the University of Southern Maine campus last week. A few yards away, powerful earth-moving equipment rattled and shook the ground, clearing land for a new arts building.
“This thing was an elder to us all,” Witham, USM’s director of sustainability, said.
Tropical Storm Lee seriously damaged the tree earlier in September, then the decision was made to cut the rest down for safety reasons. The loss of the familiar, towering beech standing just outside Luther Bonney Hall has since reverberated through the university community.
Witham has received over 150 condolence emails and messages. Several academic departments have plans for parts of the tree and, this week, the tree’s semi-ancient timber is being auctioned off to benefit other heritage growth on the university campus.
The European beech was not native to Maine and was planted for shade about 219 years ago, around 1804, by the Deering family, whose farm once occupied the land where USM now sits.
“This would have been their backyard,” said USM historian Libby Bischof. “The Deering farm stretched from what’s now Deering Oaks Park, all the way out through Oakdale.”
University of Southern Maine Historian Libby Bischof leans on the trunk of a two-century-old tree on the Portland campus on Thursday. The tree was damaged in a storm and had to be cut down. Credit: Troy R. Bennett / BDN
The university didn’t get started until 1878, and all the Portland campus buildings were built around the tree. A sister beech tree stands on the other side of the footpath from its now-fallen sibling.
Standing next to the horizontal trunk, a visibly moved Witham said the decision to take the tree down, which was partially his, was difficult.
“It was heavy,” he said. “I knew it wasn’t doing well, but I still never thought it would come down during my time. It had stood so long.”
The storm broke off one of the tree’s largest branches, tearing a hole in the trunk. The new hole connected to another void on the other side of the trunk where a duck nested and laid eggs last year. The extended hollow area, about five feet off the ground, meant the tree could fall at any time, endangering the hundreds of students who walked under its towering canopy every day.
“The upper two thirds of the tree were being supported precariously by only mere inches of wood in some locations,” Witham said in a campus-wide email preparing the community for what was coming next.
Multiple academic departments have plans for pieces of the tree. Some tree cores and rings are going to help educate students in the Environmental Science and Policy Department. Likewise, a cross section, showing the tree’s growth rings, will be used for a display showing important points in USM history.
Some of the wood was auctioned off last week and the rest will go to the block on Wednesday. Witham said he hopes craftspeople will come forward, buy the wood and make beautiful things from it. Proceeds from the sale will go to the university’s arboretum fund, used to maintain campus trees and greenery.
Pieces of a beech tree planted sometime around 1804 lay on the Portland campus of the University of Southern Maine on Thursday. The tree was damaged in a storm and had to be cut down. Credit: Troy R. Bennett / BDN
“This tree, in its death, will help support the other trees,” Witham said.
Since announcing the tree’s demise, Witham has been inundated by messages and reminiscences about the beech.
“Oh man, this makes me want to cry,” said Catherine Johnson, who runs USM’s bookstore. “That is the coolest tree ever.”
“It’s so sad to reckon with the loss of it,” said Martha Sutro, a learning specialist in USM’s Children, Youth and Families Program. “It seems a bit like a grandfatherly elephant — something holding so much patience, intelligence, and knowledge.”
Now, the giant beech’s fellow tree stands alone outside Luther Bonney Hall, just a stone’s throw from the new construction. But, as with all previous Portland campus construction projects, the tree has been taken into consideration.
“The university shifted the footprint of the new arts center by 10 feet to protect that tree’s underground root system,” he said.