THE PARK OAKS

The Oaks at the Park Homestead, Windham NH. Baldwin Coolidge Photograph Courtesy of SPNEA

100 YEARS AGO IN WINDHAM | W.S. HARRIS REPORTING

Windham April 23, 1915: “One of the two gigantic white oaks at the Park homestead on the Range died last year, and has been sawed down and reduced to firewood. Where cut it was a mere shell, over five feet across. About 1740, or 175 years ago, when Elder Robert Park cleared the farm and established a home where now his great grandchildren live, he left standing a row of three white oaks of the original forest. One of these long since disappeared, and now a single survivor stands, like Whittier’s ‘Wood Giant’ in ‘the loneliness of greatness,’ an object of veneration to every beholder and perhaps the only living object in all the township whose origin antedates the arrival of the pale-faced settler.”

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‘What marvel that in simpler days
Of the worlds early childhood,
Men crowned with garlands, gifts and praise,
Such monarchs of the wildwood! ’

The last oak has long since disappeared. The home is still standing as of April 2015, next to Naults Honda.