Part 7

I wonder how many who pass up and down Main street, or who visit the Friends’ Library, notice the trees at “Friends’ Meeting.” To me these are always a delight, and I love to look back into the spacious, restful grounds, for here and wherever these “meetings” are is a picture of peace. We all are apt to know more about “green hills” far away than of those immediately before us, for the things at hand often appear ordinary, while those heard of or seen under unusual conditions are rated by an exalted measure.

Walking in the Wissahickon upon two occasions with men of travel, I asked, “Did you ever see a more beautiful place?” One answered, “It is very much like the scenery of New Zealand, but it is better.” Another said, “I have traveled throughout Europe, and the only place that will compare at all with it is the Trossachs in Scotland, but in extent it is insignificant compared to this.” Henry Carvill Lewis, who “circled the globe” before attaining his “majority,” told me in all his travels he saw nothing that in his estimation approached the beauty of the Wissahickon, and others who have traveled far and who lived long abroad have told me “the Wissahickon is incomparable.”

So we may know much about “Bartram’s cypress,” a plant 9 feet in diameter and 120 feet high, while we may not have noticed the beautiful cypress at “Fairfield;” the specimen at David Peltz’s, on Nicetown lane; the exceedingly fine specimen 2 feet in diameter and 80 feet high at James E. Caldwell’s, on Manheim street; specimens at Henry’s, Main street, opposite Fisher’s lane; at David Hinkle’s, on Main street, near Penn street; at “Ivy Lodge;” at Vernon; at Town Hall Square; at several points on West Walnut lane, at Pomona; and the group of three very fine cypress trees we passed at Friends’ grounds.

There are many other fine cypress trees with us, but our most noted ones are on Main street, above Washington lane, where at Ellwood Johnson’s is a group of three trees of unusual height, and one solitary plant 5 feet in diameter by 100 feet high, conspicuous by its size. These plants grow upon “Honey Run,” on ground once owned by Peter Keyser, whose son of the same name, a “preacher” and tanner, brought them from South Carolina, and under his direction about the year 1800 were here planted by Israel Haupt, so Miss Elizabeth R. and Ellwood Johnson informed me.

At the Deshler-Morris home, owned and occupied by Elliston P. Morris, is one of our finest gardens, possessing several of our largest and finest trees. Mr. Morris wrote me:

“The exact age of some of my fine old trees is uncertain, the family tradition is that some of them were planted by my grandfather, or members of his family. I doubt not some of the older trees were there when it was President George Washington’s residence during the yellow fever epidemic of 1793. The great storm two years ago with its wind and sleet sadly spoiled my most attractive trees, and in some cases left me but skeletons of their former beauty, notably a 70-year-old elm tree planted by my father, Samuel B. Morris, which stands in the middle of my grounds.”

Those who view the garden of Mr. Morris wonder at its freshness, and proceeding with its owner:

“The great secret of my lawn is the unbroken expanse of grass, and the planting in conformity with established rules of landscape gardening. I have still some choice specimen trees, notable an immense English horse-chestnut (aesculus hippocastanum), with a girth I should think of some 10 feet; a hybrid English walnut (juglans regia) and butternut (juglans cinerea) very unusual, about 70 feet high and a girth of say 8 feet; a pretty specimen of the lovely cut-leaved beech (fagus S. heterophylla); a 70-year-old magnolia glauca, a fine box tree (boxus arborescens), and some 100-year-old box-bushes (boxus sempervirens), and a good variety of shrubbery, with its ever changing bloom.”

With us are many exceptional gardens, and these, with the beautiful garden of Mr. Morris, I trust may be presented at another time.

We have also many rare “wild garden plants,” and such native rare and notable plants as Goldie’s spleen-wort, climbing fern, walking fern, Nuttall’s spleen-wort, Scott’s spleen-wort, Wister’s coral plant, obolaria, Adam and Eve plant, cancer root, and others exceedingly scarce and valuable, which we may only in this way refer to.

On Main street, opposite Armat street, in a house occupied by Edward Manley, a one time preceptor of mine, once lived Christian Lehman, scribener, surveyor, notary public and nurseryman, and here in the old “nursery” is an English walnut to remind us of the first local importer of this valuable tree. The present specimen belongs to a later period, but is doubtless a product of an original planting of surrounding grounds. From a much used advertisement of the Pennsylvania Gazette of April 12, 1768, we learn that there was “to be sold--a choice parcel of well grown young English walnut, as well as pear and apricot, and a curious variety of the best and largest sorts from England of grafted plumb trees fit for transplanting this spring or next fall, as well as a great variety of beautiful double hyacinth roots and tulip roots, next summer season, and most other things in the flower or fruit nursery way, by Christian Lehman.”

“Vernon,” although its native charms vanished with its open stream, meadow, spring-house and protecting shrubbery, yet preserves much to hold and interest us. The ground now covered by Vernon include the estate of Melchior Meng and part of that of Henry Kurtz, both plant lovers possessing fine gardens, which were enriched by cultivations of Matthias Kin, a celebrated plant collector.

Here is the locally known “Meng’s magnolia” (magnolia macrophylla) procured by Kin, the first magnolia of its kind cultivated in North America, and here are oak and hemlock trees planted by John Wister in the early part of the last century. Several noted trees once here have gone. One was an immense buttonwood with a trunk having a diameter of 5 feet; another was a weeping willow (salix babylonica) located near the spring-house, and others were a large horse-chestnut which shaded the front of Kurtz house, and a large linden (tilia Americana) once prominent on the street before the door of Melchior Meng. Many doubtless may recall Meng’s house as “Oliver Jester’s tin shop,” until a few years ago standing on Vernon’s southern front.

Old gardens, and the grapes of which Pastorius wrote have gone, but we have in new Germantown, gardens superior to any of olden time, and I warrant the 8-inch diameter grape vine-trunks of middle Wissahickon are equal to any the “founder” ever saw. So, too, the two gardens of Dr. Christopher Witt are no more, and there is nothing surviving to suggest them.

On the Geissler-Warner tract, part of which was also once occupied by Dr. Witt, whereon also he had his first garden, stands St. Michael’s P. E. Church, and on its rear chancel wall is an ivy recently re-planted by E. A. Frey. This plant, carefully transferred from a former position, is a hardy “English ivy” brought originally from Sir Walter Scott’s “Abbotsford” by Dorsey Cox, and was here planted under the direction of the late beloved rector, Dr. John K. Murphy.

At this place also grew a white mulberry tree (morus alba) of local celebrity, one of many which sprang up in this neighborhood, the parent tree being at the “cocoonery,” Hermann and Morton streets. Although Dr. Philip Syng Physick, nor his son Philip--who was never a doctor--had any direct connection with this tree, it is justly prized, and I am pleased that in the form of a “Canterbury chair,” made by George Redles, it now occupies a prominent position in the chancel of the church, for beyond these associations, it was grown in the Warner burying ground, where was laid the remains of the Warners, Daniel Geissler, Dr. Christopher Witt, and perhaps John Kelpius, all Mystics and early botanists, and we have before us a memorial sanctified by the blood it contains.

Though the Warner ground mulberry was a foundling, we have on the original “multicaulis” grounds where Philip Physick lived a solitary specimen of mulberry of unusual size, 3 feet in diameter by 40 feet high, now in bloom, to remind us of a “South Sea bubble” burst, which troubled the investors of a generation past.

Among the noted trees of Germantown was a pecan once standing on the grounds of Dr. William R. Dunton, and which was removed after the erection of the First Methodist Church. This tree was grown from one of several nuts which Thomas Nuttall brought from Arkansas and presented to his friend, Reuben Haines, a prominent officer of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, and at whose home in Germantown he was a frequent guest. The nut which produced Doctor Dunton’s tree was given by Reuben Haines to his neighbor, Daniel Pastorius, and two nuts were planted in his own garden, all developed to plants of maturity, but the trees at “Wyck” died, while the Pastorius tree reached large proportions, bore fruit, and it is to be regretted that a specimen of so much interest could not have been preserved.

In many respects a pecan (carya olivaeformis) resembles a hickory (carya tomentosa), a tree whose name occupies an important place in the early records of Germantown. From our Township line boundaries the ancient “hicories” have disappeared, and I shall refer only to a notable one which stood on Baynton street, west of Church lane, a tree Thomas MacKellar described as “the finest hickory” he ever saw.

“Wyck” throughout the history of Germantown has been conspicuous, and I regret that present bounds will not permit us to enlarge upon it. To this attractive spot came the most noted naturalists of the last century, and following in the path of generous culture came Lafayette, who in the year 1825 was given here a public reception, which is distinctly remembered by Robert Thomas and Joseph Murter, honored citizens already referred to, who attended it. At “Wyck” is growing a Spanish chestnut (castanea vesca) raised from a tree whose parent nut was planted by Washington at Belmont for Judge Richard Peters. Also here is a white walnut (juglans cinerea) grown from a tree planted by Lafayette at Belmont, upon his “farewell visit” to America. Many of us may remember it was an immense tree standing on “Wyck” ground, and afterwards in the centre of the street almost opposite “The Barn,” which gave to Walnut lane its name. This walnut for many years was permitted to keep its place, but in due time became a prey to expediency.

Likewise it was a noted oak which gave name to a familiar “east-side” lane, and the circumstances attending, were almost identical with those serving the Walnut lane dedication.

Among plants rare, though not rare plants, are several which have always puzzled me that they are not more general in cultivation. One of these is tamarisk (tamarix gallica), a shrub or small tree common enough in other parts, but with us scarce. The finest specimen of this plant we have is one 8 inches in diameter, rising with a bushy head to a height of 16 feet, and growing in the garden of Mrs. Frank Cooley, 106 Hermann street. Ordinarily tamarisk is of a thin, straggling habit, but responding to care and liberal pruning this plant shows a remarkably heavy, vigorous growth, as a cut, page 173 of volume 12, Meehans’ Monthly, fairly illustrates.

On our way northward, let us as we pass Charles Megargee’s mansion, now the home of a popular club, recall a rare oriental spruce recorded by William E. Meehan. Impersonality in writing is often its greatest strength, but the credit for a large amount of city history presented by Mr. Meehan I should like to see justly given, for much that has appeared and repeatedly reappeared belongs to him. The oriental spruce (picea orientalis) once here was considered a remarkably fine one, and belonged to the “most northern growing of all the pine tree family.” This specimen was brought to Philadelphia “by Engineer George W. Melville on his return from the famous De Long expedition,” the specimen being secured “on an island near the mouth of the Lena river.”

Among our scarce plants is persimmon (diospyros Virginiana), though why this should be I do not know, for outside our territory, and especially in the neighborhood of the Perkiomen Valley, it is one of the most common of trees. At Stenton; on Abbotsford avenue near James A. Wright’s place; in the Wissahickon, near “Livezey’s Mills;” near Rabbit lane and County line, we have meritorious if not great persimmons; and at Miss Hocker’s, Main street above Washington lane; also at Joseph C. Channon’s, Main street, above Pastorius street, we have at each place two specimens, noteworthy because being directly upon our main highway they serve to remind us of farm days and the simple character of our one-time village. Here, too, at “Channon’s,” under the care of Miss Amelia R. Wood, is a lusty Japanese persimmon (diospyros kaki) which never fails to fruit. Also here, as well as at Miss Elizabeth R. Johnson’s near-by, are quince, pear and apple orchards, survivors of ancient days, blossoming as of old.

Townsend Ward, with others before him, and followed by Judge Samuel W. Pennypacker, have given accounts of a great but almost unknown man who had the confidence to address Cromwell upon his plans, a religious writer of wide influence, the founder of a successful community, which existed nearly 200 years before that of the more widely known Brook Farm of New England. This man was Peter Cornelius Plockhoy, and his colony was located on the Delaware river, where the town of Lewes now is. Ward records: “In 1694 there came to Germantown an old man and his wife. He was blind and poor, and his name was Cornelius Plockhoy, the founder and last survivor of the Mennonite colony broken up 30 years before at the Hoorn Kill by Sir Robert Carr. The good people of Germantown took pity on him;” and continuing with Judge Pennypacker, “they gave him the citizenship free of charge.” They set apart for him at the end street of the village by Peter Klever’s corner a lot 12 rods long and one rod broad whereon to build a little house and make a garden; in front of it they planted a tree. Jan Doeden and William Rittenhouse were appointed to take up “a free will offering” and to have the house built.

I refer to this because Plockhoy, more than he is, should be identified with Germantown, because a tree in this early life of the colony was considered of sufficient importance to name, and also because this house and tree stood upon Kyser’s lane within sight of the homestead owned and occupied by Miss Elizabeth R. Johnson, in whose charming garden situated at the northwest corner of Main street and Washington lane, we shall stop for awhile to “sit at her feet” while she entertains us with accounts of her historic plants. Among the rare treasures here is a fine Persian lilac (syringa persica) planted in 1771, which continues vigorous and spreads its sweetness upon the receptive air. A curious fig (ficus carica) here is the development of a shoot which for 4 years after the removal of the parent tree did not appear, but is now, as figs go, a stately plant. Here also on the southern exposure of the mansion is the first wisteria (wisteria speciosa) planted in Germantown, and one of the first planted in America, a plant of immense proportions, and whose numerous runners overspreading two near-by trees weighted them to earth.

Many fine wisteria plants we have, and at Ellwood Johnson’s fascinating retreat adjoining there is a most beautiful specimen; another is at “Grumblethorpe;” another at William Rotch Wister’s on Wisteria avenue, and yet another at Dr. Herman Burgin’s on West Chelten avenue; also at David McMahon’s on East Chelten avenue are two handsome wisterias grown as standards. All these are notable plants, and conspicuous among an innumerable company which help beautify our town.

At the Johnson homestead are several fine box trees planted in the year 1800, and these bring to mind other superior box trees; plants on Hermann street, near Baynton street; at Hacker house, on Main street; at Vernon, and at many other points in our territory.