YARMOUTH, Maine — Herbie — a massive tree that stretched 110 feet into the sky, captured the imagination of a town’s residents and earned the title of New England’s champion elm — was cut down Tuesday after a long battle with Dutch elm disease. It was more than 200 years old.
Assisted by a massive crane, a crew took the proud tree down, limb by limb, as residents and the tree’s 101-year-old caretaker gathered to bid it farewell.
Among those witnessing the tree’s historic passing was Frank Knight, the town’s former tree warden, who cared for the beloved American elm for a half-century.
“It’s been a beautiful tree. I’m sorry to see it go. But nothing is forever,” Knight said. “It’s pretty near my turn. And it’s just a fact of life that life is going to end. And that’s for people, for trees, for everything. I thank the good Lord every day that we had him in his glory and beauty for so long.”
Steadied with a cane, Knight watched a state official count the tree’s rings in the stump.
Herbie was originally estimated to be 240 years old. But a preliminary count of growth rings by Peter Lammert of the Maine Forest Service indicated it was 212.
A precise age will be announced after the stump is sanded smooth and examined under magnification, Lammert said.
