Some Trees by Michael Ceraolo
from Euclid Creek Book Four
Some Trees
For the milestone celebration
the Cleveland Sesquicentennial Commission
established a Committee on Moses Cleaveland Trees
The Committee sough nominations for trees
that, based on current size and known growth rate
(different for each species)
were present
when Cleaveland came to the mouth of the Cuyahoga
The Committee, chaired by Arthur B. Williams
of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History,
chose 150 trees from the 242 nominations,
and after confirming, through measurement
of the trunk at a height of 4 feet,
they were indeed of the required age,
marked them with a 5" x 10"
aluminum plaque that read:
"This is a Moses Cleaveland Tree
It was standing here
as part of the original forest
when Moses Cleaveland landed
at the Mouth of the Cuyahoga River,
July 22, 1796
Let us preserve it as a living memorial
to the first settlers of the Western Reserve"
When the Early Settlers' Association of the Western Reserve
undertook a survey of the celebrated trees 25 years later
they found that only 92 trees were left,
and
only 15 of those still had the plaque attached
(some trees' fate was unknown)
Two of the original list
were in the vicinity of the mouth of the creek:
1036 East 174th Street,
only a few hundred yards from the creek
An American elm that has a
"Straight trunk with large ascending branches
with an arch over like a great umbrella
One of the finest elms ever seen"
Still there in 1971,
and
in 2019 towers over the two houses,
easily twice the height of the taller house
About three or four feet up
the massive trunk has split at least once,
and each split also appears
to have split at least once
It seems from the street
(the tree is in the backyard)
to be missing the plaque
and
18436 Lake Shore Boulevard,
maybe a mile east from where
the creek goes underneath the street
A Bur Oak
"Diameter 45.5 inches"
"A marvelously fine tree with straight trunk
and many short horizontal branches below,
and ascending branches above
Looks 125 feet high
Visible from street at edge of driveway"
Its fate was unknown in 1971,
and
unless the estimated height
was incredibly wrong,
it is gone in 2019
Four others on the original list
were in the watershed proper:
an American elm
"Diameter 59.0 inches"
"Beside farm house on east side of Wilson Mills Road
at juncture of Lander Road"
"A fine example of the "farmhouse elm" "
Still standing in June 1949,
but
gone by 1971 as the farm had been divided
in the suburbanization of the area
and
three in the Metropark:
a sugar maple
"Diameter 33.0 inches"
"On the east side of Park Boulevard about midway
between north and south ends of this road"
"A tree of forest form
with tall smooth trunk and dead top"
"Labeled 6/21/46"
but
gone in 1971;
a second sugar maple
"Diameter 34.5 inches"
"Trunk with large loose "wings" or plates of bark
Rather battered looking, with broken top"
"Labeled 6/21/46"
Now gone
and a beech
"Diameter 30.0 inches"
"On west side of Park Boulevard about midway
"On west side of Park Boulevard about midway
between north and south ends of this road"
"A tree with straight smooth trunk of forest form,
perhaps 250 years old"
"Labeled 6/21/46"
Diameter expanded to 47.6 inches in 1971
(no word on whether the plaque was still there),
but fallen over, dead, in 2019
Bio: "Michael Ceraolo is a retired firefighter/paramedic and active poet who has had one full-length book (Euclid Creek, from Deep Cleveland Press) and a few chapbooks published (among the chapbooks is Cleveland Haiku, from Green Panda Press). He has a second full-length book, Euclid Creek Book Two, forthcoming from unbound content press, and is continually working on new and existing poetry projects.
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