The American Elm: A Story of a Historic Tree
“Amid the changes which have taken place in the world, and particularly in America and New England, it has stood like a watchman; and if it could speak, it would be an interesting chronicler of events.”
Description of the Washington Elm in the American Magazine, 1842
Elms on The Green in Woodstock, Vermont.
By Matthew Powers
Once known as the most popular tree in the United States, the American Elm has stood throughout our history as an important landscape icon. The domestication of this tree began as individuals and groups planted elms from New England to the West Coast during the 19th century. The planting of millions of these trees would create something uniquely American, and the tree’s cathedral-like branches arched over thousands of private and public spaces. These were places where trees would become intrinsically linked to the people residing under them and representing far more than just the shade they provided.
Photograph of Elm Street in Woodstock, Vermont.
The traditional native use of the elm changed very rapidly with the colonization of white settlers. For many settlers, the forests were seen as an impediment to agricultural development. It was often stipulated by a land grantor that a settler would need to clear a portion of their land. Cleared land also meant survival. While New England settlers understood that elms were indicators for a rich quality or “sweetness” of soil as well as a place of good water, the massive labor investment of a farmer to cut down such obstacles was one not worth making. The tree’s wet location posed the biggest issue to its removal. The American Elm also has very tough and fibrous wood and it is quite difficult to cut with an axe and saw. It therefore had limited commercial value. It was generally only used for larger construction uses that were not subject to the plane. It was used for carriage hubs, yokes, and other larger necessities. Or in an agricultural setting, the elm was used as a shade-tree for livestock and for houses. Its tall, broad, vase-like shape lent itself perfectly to be left alone to stand sentinel over a farm. It quickly gained a foothold in the pastoral landscape and was romanticized as the embodiment of permanence and settlement. It was often portrayed romantically in paintings created by Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Cole, and by other Hudson River School painters and began to stand for broader cultural contexts in the American landscape.
One of the Dana house elms.
Charles Dana planted this tree in 1856 to replace an older elm.
The American Elm’s ability to survive the agricultural development in New England, as well as its apparent link to the past, lent itself to dominate both rural and urban spaces. As stated earlier, elms were indicators of good soil and many settlers chose to establish farms on those sites. Houses were often erected to stand under those old elms as a protection from the harsh and often unpredictable weather in New England. This type of tree was also planted next to houses to symbolize the relationships between family and friends, family values, and ancestry. Homestead or house elms began to dominate the landscape and became part of American domestic life.
Converse House at the corner of Elm and Pleasant Streets. The elm on the left of the photograph was planted by Charles Dana in the spring of 1803.
“Under the leafless arches of the elms,…the trees themselves more than ever like columns and ribbed ceilings of churches.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The cultural link between this tree and the people of this land first took root with Native Americans as they were America’s first landscape planners. A primary tool used by these people to alter the environment was the use of fire. The woods were fired for a variety of purposes including seasonal camp and agricultural development, and enhanced landscape “zones” that provided a rich habitat for plants and animals. These, in turn, could be harvested by native peoples. Although the native inhabitants were selective in their burning, the wetter areas (such as moist bottomlands) were not equally affected by the fires. In other words, certain forest types and trees, were not destroyed by native burning due to their location. The elm was one of these trees and was common along rivers, streams, and wetlands. It dominated these areas and many different tribes and nations used the elm for specific uses including cordage making, roofing, and medicinal applications.
Members of the Dana family established the Elm Tree Press in 1906 on Elm Street.
The Dana family greatly valued their family, education, and community. The symbol of the elm was seen as the embodiment of these values.
The White Elm (also known as the American elm) or Ulmus Americana, as shown in The North American Sylva, 1852. (Courtesy of the author.)
“To Michaux, the American elm was a masterpiece of sylvan architecture, or as he memorably put it, ‘the most magnificent vegetable of the temperate zone.’”
In the 19th and 20th centuries, town residents rallied around the elm, not only preserving the old trees but planting new ones. Improvement societies and individuals took an interest in these tree plantings. It was believed that these trees would help to project modern civic ideals such as orderliness and civic-mindedness. These planted tree-lined streets and well-shaded greens also provided aesthetic qualities to urban, suburban, and rural areas. It was during this time that horticulturists and town planners began to see the potential value of shade trees in the street environment. They used examples of New England’s early inhabitants, who used shade trees for agricultural and domestic purposes. The symbolic and civic function of elm trees in the landscape also mirrored those of buildings. Meetinghouses and churches with steeples became synonymous with the American Elm. Often described as being of the same ideology in the objectification of space in towns; the steeple stood as a civic totem and the elm was its sylvan counterpart.
Interior of the Green.
The elm became a communal centerpiece, often adorning town greens and other symbolic centers of towns.
“The tree was a token of the native forest that yielded to domestication with grace and dignity, a fragment of wild nature planted curbside from coast to coast.”
A view looking south on Elm Street in Woodstock, Vermont
Looking north on Elm Street.
Elm Street wasn’t laid out until 1798 and was “shut in” on both sides by log fences. Elms sprouted out amongst the fence and some of them survived after it was removed.
“The Passing of the Elm”
There were many factors for the loss of millions of elm trees during the late 19th and 20th centuries. The rise of paving at the turn of the 20th century (effectively depriving trees of water, nutrients, and oxygen) led to the demise of older trees and stunted younger ones. Motor vehicles also introduced a cocktail of pollutants into the streetscape ecosystem. “Environmental stress made elms more susceptible to diseases and pests that had posed only minor threats in the past. By the end of the nineteenth century, New England’s elms were being increasingly victimized by a variety of pathogens. The elm leaf beetle (Galeruca xanthomeleaena), which arrived in the United States in 1834, often stripped elms of their foliage. At New Haven, the first invasion of elm leaf beetles took place in the 1890s, and was met by a city-wide campaign to spray the trees with an insecticide. A second, larger invasion took place in 1908.” The almost complete demise of this tree in the 2oth century occurred on the heels of the elm leaf beetle invasion and the rise of street development. A parasitic fungus known as Dutch Elm Disease started in 1931 in the United States. European elm bark beetles also became rampant at the same time. Weather problems, as seen in the Hurricane of 1938, also contributed to conditions for one of the worst environmental disasters in American history. The battle to save the elm began almost immediately as people realized the profound effect to our landscapes and the loss of a symbol that was perceived as a link to our past. Despite many decades of attempts to save this species, millions of the trees were lost across the United States. The age of the Yankee elm was over. The planting of elms throughout the United States in groves had effectively doomed this majestic tree. The American Elm is a solitary tree, and it almost never grows in pure stands. “Planting these trees in such great numbers, and in such close proximity, left them in a profoundly unsustainable condition. It was only a matter of time before a pandemic of some kind swept through this manmade forest and set things right. Nature has an uncanny tendency to maintain its own equilibrium, irrespective of human wishes. America’s affection for the elm created the most extensive urban forest in history; but it also set the stage for a plague of unprecedented proportions. The ubiquity of the elm was its downfall; the tree was loved to death.”
Storm damage on the Green from the Hurricane of 1938
Learn more about the American Elm and efforts to reestablish it in the United States.
The Republic of Shade: New England and the American Elm, Thomas J. Campanella. Yale University Press. 2003