TOPSFIELD — An oak tree that’s had a front seat to history received last week special care that locals hope will extend its already impressive life.
The oak sits near the front of the Essex County Co-Op on Main Street, right across from the Topsfield Fairgrounds.
While there’s no telling exactly how old the tree is due to its odd shape, records preserved by the Topsfield Historical Society point to the tree being about 400 years old.
It’s likely the oldest known oak in Topsfield and has become a symbol of the town, at least in the eyes of history.
In the 1600s, Salem Witch Trial victims Rebecca Nurse and Mary Easty, sisters originally named Towne, likely passed by the tree as young women on their way to and from their parents’ farm in Topsfield. Last Thursday marked the 332nd anniversary of the start of the Trials.
The tree was there in 1697, when a blockhouse was built across the street to defend the town against attacks from the French and their Indigenous allies. The oak was standing in 1775 as Topsfield soldiers marched to fight at Lexington and Concord, and it was still there when the Newburyport Turnpike, built in 1803, turned into Route 1 a century later, according to the Historical Society.
Most notably, the tree has seen generations of farmers and families pass by on their way to the Topsfield Fair. Attendees now park just yards away from the oak each fall.
“It’s an heirloom,” arborist and Rockport native Chris Wood said. “It’s an irreplaceable part of the community.”
Wood and his company Heirloom Tree Care worked on the tree Thursday morning. They pruned smaller, dead branches and removed rotted mulch around the trunk to support its large root system. In the future, Essex Tech students will help maintain the tree’s health.
The oak still sprouts each spring, but has a decent amount of rot on its branches and is hollow on the inside. Wood said there’s likely only another 50 or 100 years left for the tree, making Thursday’s work that much more important.
Kinship Farm sponsored the project in its ongoing mission to preserve old trees in the area. The farm aims to foster spirituality, though not any particular religion, through community relationships and the environment.
The organization also helps provide food to those in need and educates the community on farming, the environment and sustainability. It is looking to do more preventative care on old trees on private properties, including churches in Beverly and Hamilton.
Kinship founder Susie Jostyn said preserving such trees will inspire others to better care for ones on their own properties.
“We live under this history of thinking that a forest just kind of exists and the best thing to do is leave it by itself, but actually Native peoples were constantly caring for their forests,” she said.
“We need to be constantly thinking about and caring for our forests so that we don’t have massive die-outs that catch us by surprise, and so that we’re nurturing and growing.”
It’s impressive the tree has survived this long at all considering how many oak trees were chopped down for timber in the 17th and 18th centuries. But this one’s odd shape kept saws away.
The tree might even be a contender for the widest oak in the state, Wood said.
A volunteer measured the oak’s circumference at 15 feet, 5 inches in 2017. The Topsfield Historical Society dedicated it as the Arbor Day Oak Tree that year, and a plaque was added to the site to commemorate its history.
The Co-Op owns the land the tree sits on and will make sure the tree can go on for as long as it can. They won’t know how old it is exactly until it falls or is cut down, when the annual growth rings on its trunk can be counted, Co-Op General Manager Wesley Leavitt said.
Hopefully, that won’t be anytime soon.
“It’s a hidden gem that a lot of people don’t know about,” he said, “so we realize how important it is to take care of.”
Contact Caroline Enos at CEnos@northofboston.com.
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