General Benjamin Wait, founder of Waitsfield, owned property in Waitsfield, including the General Wait House, in the late 18th Century and into the 19th Century. On that land was an elm tree that he owned from 1789 to 1822.
Last week, on August 5, forester and conservation commissioner Leo Laferriere and others unveiled a display of a cross-cut section of that tree at the Waitsfield Town Office.
Through the efforts of Laferriere and a team of volunteers, the slab was refurbished and explanatory text added.
Laferriere and the Waitsfield Historical Society underwrote some of the costs, and with the help of town staff and other community volunteers, this piece of history is preserved. The cross-section has been contextualized by Laferriere, who created the timeline to accompany it.
From Laferriere’s text:
On his homestead, Waitsfield’s founder and namesake, General Benjamin Wait, owned this tree from 1789 to 1822.
When the tree started growing, all the Mad River Valley was covered with dense forests and flowing streams occupied by the native wildlife. The only humans occasionally present were Native American Abenaki folks passing through while carrying on their nomadic hunter-gatherer form of living.
REVEALS ITS AGE
Through their annual growth rings, trees enable us to document their lifespan.
Growth rings are formed each year when the tree adds a complete layer of new wood over every part of itself. The process is similar to stacking cones, each one larger and taller than the previous cone, and, viewed from the bottom, forming concentric rings.
Growth is faster in the spring season, producing light-colored wood, and slower in the summer, producing darker-colored wood.
The combination of spring light and summer dark is one year’s growth, producing visible rings, and enabling us to count how many years the tree has been growing.
ABOUT THIS TREE
By counting the rings, we determined that this tree was 344 years old when it was harvested in 1939.
Counting the rings when it was cut in 1939, the farmers who created and marked this exhibit estimated that the tree was 330 years old. However, they also stated this section was taken 12 feet above the stump or ground-level. That means the tree then had already grown to 12 feet high to reach the point where the section was taken.
Counting from the sprout of a seed in the ground as year one, and using data from research into early elm tree growth rates, it is determined that elm trees grow at a rate of 10 inches per year.
So, from the beginning of its growth, the tree is older than the indicated 330 years by the amount of time required for it to reach 12 feet tall. If this section had been cut at ground level, it would have been larger in diameter and shown 14 more rings.
Adding 14 years to the 330 counted in 1939 means this tree was 344 years old in 1939, beginning its growth in the year 1595.
This tree grew through five or more human lifetimes, starting its life 25 years before the Pilgrims sailed to America.
1609 TO 1939 TIMELINE
Hand-punched into this wood are these statements, dates and events:
“This plaque was taken from an Elm tree cut on the farm of Walter Joslin, Waitsfield, Vermont, formerly a part of the Benjamin Wait farm.
“One log, 18 feet long, measured 1000 board feet of lumber and produced veneer for 12,500 plywood backs for clothes brushes.
“This slab, taken twelve feet above the stump and showing the tree to be about 330 years old, was presented to the town of Waitsfield by Mr. and Mrs. Walter C. Joslin at the town’s sesquicentennial in August 1939.”
1609 Lake Champlain was discovered by Samuel de Champlain. This tree was a seedling.
1620 Pilgrims landed at Plymouth
1724 First English settlement in Vermont at Fort Dummer
1732George Washington born
1736 Benjamin Wait family first settler of Waitsfield, Vt., Born at Sudbury, Mass.
1755-61War with France. B. Wait Ensign “Roger’s Ranger”
1767 Benjamin Wait family settled in Windsor, Vt.
1776 Declaration of Independence
1782 Waitsfield chartered
1783 End of Rev. War
1786 President Washington inaugurated
1789 Gen. B. Wait and family first settlers in Waitsfield
1790-91 First census Waitsfield pop.61
1812 War with England
1822 Death Gen. Benjamin Wait
1830 Flood
1845 War with Mexico
1861-5 Civil War
1881 Chester A. Arthur, Vt., made president
1889 Waitsfield Centennial Celebration
1898 War with Spain
1917 World War I
1923 Calvin Coolidge, Vt. Made president
1927 Flood
1938 Flood Hurricane
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Leo Laferriere with General Wait’s Elm Tree. Photo by Bev Kehoe
