Did you ever want to hug a tree? Or just sigh as you admired one?

From colossal sequoia to shapely bonsai, in summer’s finery or winter’s bareness, they make the spirit soar just standing there. The classical oak immortalized in John Constable’s paintings of English pastures; towering walls of ancient cypresses of the Mediterranean; pulsating tropical rainforest canopies; the bent birches of Robert Frost’s poem. I’ve had my share of close encounters of a tree kind.

            I well recall one of those encounters on a street corner in nearby Edgartown. Maybe you have seen it? The tree I speak of came all the way from China as a seedling in a pot. Captain Thomas Milton brought it to the Vineyard during the War of 1812. He decided to settle there, buying the land and building the South Water Street house that the tree now shades. This magnificent pagoda tree is the oldest of its kind on the continent. If you go to Edgartown, you will know it immediately. It’s the one that will leave you awestruck.

            As a child, I was fascinated with the legendary figure Johnny Appleseed. I think I took it quite literally that he was singly responsible for planting all the apple trees in North America. I came to marry a Johnny Appleseed of sorts. He’s consumed with the idea of growing fruit trees, having spent his youth raiding orchards throughout Yorkshire, England. As we’ve added more each year to our back yard, it has become apparent we now have our own little orchard. I must have known what was happening when we spent a hefty sum on an espaliered apple tree. “It bears four different kinds of apples,” my husband said, appealing to my innate practicality.

            My father can take some of the blame for my desire to accumulate trees of every variety. His gardening accomplishments are something of folkloric proportions. When he was a boy, he planted a twig that grew into a massive willow tree – a sort of natural candelabra under which the family relaxed for cookouts. Many a peaceful nap was incurred from its hypnotic tendrils moving in the breeze. To us children it was like a giant cathedral of seemingly infinite height and breadth that totally enveloped our summer visits at my grandmother’s. Years later, the tree had to be cut down as it was suffering from some incurable blight. It had grown to 15 feet in diameter! We were sad to see it go and my grandmother’s backyard never looked the same again. In more recent years and owing to that glorious memory, I planted a willow out back. As I look out from where I now sit, I know it was a good decision. And who knows? Maybe I’m creating memories for grandchildren.

            Over the years, my father has planted innumerable trees – blue spruce, Japanese maple, dogwood, crabapple, catalpa, ginkgo, birch, all sorts of fruit-bearing trees, and pines galore. You name it, he’s grown it, experimenting with grafting and pruning techniques as well as developing a time-saving fertilizing device.

            A while back we revisited our former home, where my parents planted their first gardens while rearing their three young children. Usually when you go back, things seem much smaller. This experience was the opposite. The place had the most magnificent trees, all of them planted by my father who’d bought the house on a blank lot, one of many in a subdivision built in the early 1960s. While clearing land for a new home, the one they presently live in, my father and relatives spent months removing trees. Fifty-five years later, he has replaced them in triplicate.

            Nowadays my Dad is a bona fide tree farmer – although he contends it’s just a hobby. He grows all kinds of trees on his eight acres, including each family member’s Christmas tree and special seedlings he orders from his suppliers. My mother used to say he talked to his trees – a way to decompress from his high stress job as construction manager. There is something to be said for tending plants and watching them grow.

            There have been stumbling blocks – from the deer that used his young concolor white fir saplings for antler rubbing posts to the scourge of gypsy moths. Another year it was the pesky beavers that dammed up the nearby pond, thus interrupting his water source for an irrigation system that feeds his fledgling forests.

            Last Friday marked Arbor Day – dedicated to trees and their preservation. In observation of it, you may want to plant a tree for yourself or another tree-worthy person. Meanwhile, I have the perfect spot for a prunus subhirtella! Maybe the old maxim is true – the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

            “Don’t get me wrong…I love trees! There should be more of them. When I use paper, I use both sides.” — Steve Coogan in the film Coffee and Cigarettes.

By Laura McLean

            In 1975, the Mattapoisett Grange building, now a four-unit condominium complex situated at the corner of Route 6 and Main Street, received the esteemed designation of qualifying for inclusion to the National Register of Historic Places. While it has long stood as a significant piece of the community’s storied beginnings, the building, would now enjoy its rightful place alongside other notable structures.

            More recently, the Mattapoisett Historical Commission presented the property owners with a new plaque noting the building’s inclusion to the register. As the Mattapoisett Historical Commission pursues recognition of numerous structures and locations throughout the community, the former grange hall stands as an icon of that rich past.

            As part of the commission’s designated responsibility to document places of historic significance, the town granted the commission Community Preservation grants to fund professional investigation and documentation that would ultimately place hundreds on the Massachusetts Historical Commission MACRIS (Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System). MACRIS may be accessed by the public and is a wealthy repository for researchers, educators, or even property owners seeking historic details regarding their property.

            The Grange building began life as a Meeting House, The Third Meeting House and has been the site if public meetings dating back to 1816. In spite of modern life and property usages eventually surrounding the building it maintains its elegance. It was built in the Italianate style popular in the 1800’s. As its function changed over the decades from a Meeting House to a school, a church, and a private residence, its massive profile has stood as a beacon of superb architecture.

            For those who love details, the MACRIS website notes; the two-story rectangular clapboarded building rests on a cut granite foundation…with a pedimented two-story central pavilion…all the windows on the façade have round arches on top with hood moldings over the arches. In spite of losing its banneret weathervane in the 1938 hurricane, the building looks essentially much as it did when first constructed.

            Dipping back a bit further into its long life, the state history notes, “After the roof of the Second Meeting house was destroyed in the 1815 hurricane and because the town’s occupation was turning from farming to ship building, the congregation located closer to the sea…”

            As we prepare for our spring Town Meeting its fun to note that the history of the Grange includes its use as a meeting place for town meetings, “…a memorable session lasting from March 6, 1837, to July 10…” as the community dealt with the issue of Mattapoisett separating from Rochester.

            As we move about in our busy modern day lives, we should take a moment to remember the people who help to make Mattapoisett special or should I say the buildings. As commented in the state database, “The Third Meting House, aka the grange, is significant not only for its architectural importance to Mattapoisett, but also for the contributions it has made to the political development of the town and in the field of education.”

By Marilou Newell