Giant At Fenimore Museum Comes Down

4-9-10

When James Fenimore Cooper moved his bride from Westchester County to the future Fenimore Farm on Otsego Lake, it was a mere sapling.
When future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Nelson lived in the former Cooper house in the mid-19th century, it was a sturdy 30-something.
It grew and grew into, in recent decades, that familiar giant maple tree on the front lawn of The Fenimore Art Museum.
By the end of the week, however, it will be  just so much cord wood.  Monday, April 5, crews from Tallman Tree Services, Fly Creek, began to bring the old man down.
Tallman proprietor Charles Graham, who was at the scene, said the trunk was 4-foot wide; the rot inside the tree was 34 inches wide, making the felling inevitable.
Extraordinary efforts were made in past 20 years to keep the tree alive, he said, but time ran out.
He pointed to the sizeable maples that line The Fenimore’s driveway, and estimated they are about 100 years old.
When the main trunk is cut and the circles counted, Graham said, a precise measure of the tree’s age will be possible.
NYSHA spokesman Todd Kenyon echoed that sentiment, saying he counted 20 cables that had been strung over the years to try to keep the tree upright.