Event
2024 Evacuation Day Lecture: The Stories of the Washington Elm
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Description
Cambridge Common has multiple monuments to the “Washington Elm,” a tree held up (eventually by steel rods) as a symbol of American patriotism. Henry W. Longfellow is said to have composed the text on one of those markers: “Under this tree WASHINGTON first took command of the American Army, July 3, 1775.” After the elm finally collapsed in 1923, more skeptical researchers concluded that its fame was based on little more than legend. In this talk, J. L. Bell digs into how the Washington Elm came to be celebrated, what its story says about the national memory of the Revolution, and why we really should remember this tree.
J. L. Bell is the author of The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War and of Gen. George Washington’s Home and Headquarters, Cambridge, Mass., a historic resource study for the National Park Service. He shares new research and old stories at Boston 1775.