In 1844, its girth, three feet from the ground, where its circumference
is least, was twelve feet two and a half inches. In 1884, at the same
point, it measures fourteen feet one inch; a gain so slight that the
rings of annual growth must be difficult to trace--an evidence of waning
vital force. The grand subdivisions of the trunk are all sadly crippled;
unsightly bandages of zinc mask the progress of decay; the symptoms of
approaching dissolution are painfully evident, especially in the winter
season. In summer, the remaining vitality expends itself in a host of
branchlets which feather the limbs, and give rise to a false impression
of vigor.

Never has tree been cherished with greater care, but its days are
numbered. A few years more or less, and, like Penn's Treaty Elm and the
famous Charter Oak, it will be numbered with the things that were.


THE ELIOT OAK

When John Eliot had become a power among the Indians, with far-reaching
sagacity he judged it best to separate his converts from the whites, and
accordingly, after much inquiry and toilsome search, gathered them into
a community at Natick--an old Indian name formerly interpreted as "a
place of hills," but now generally admitted to mean simply "my land."
Anticipating the policy which many believe must eventually be adopted
with regard to the entire Indian question, Eliot made his settlers
land-owners, conferred upon them the right to vote and hold office,
impressed upon them the duties and responsibilities of citizenship, and
taught them the rudiments of agriculture and the mechanic arts.