Remembering and replacing the fallen oaks at the Grove
First Selectman Curtis Rand, who is a professional forester, showed one of the fallen white oaks at the Grove in Lakeville. New oaks are being planted there this summer. 
Photo by Patrick L. Sullivan 

Remembering and replacing the fallen oaks at the Grove

LAKEVILLE — Salisbury First Selectman Curtis Rand had a terrific pitch for a story idea: “It isn’t about COVID-19.”

Rand and town Grove Manager Stacey Dodge were at the Grove on Thursday morning, May 21, showing off new-ish white oak saplings.

The new trees are meant to replace the much older white oaks, some of which have come down in recent years.

Rand said the white oaks have a history that’s worth telling.

It is unusual to have trees of the same species and age — 400 years old, give or take a decade — in the same spot. The Grove is named for these trees (it is a “grove” of a oak trees).

It seems to indicate the trees were planted deliberately. And the only people who could have done that were native Americans.

Rand (who is a professional forester and forestry educator) tried his theory out on a Yale professor, who agreed it seemed likely that native Americans, practicing swidden agriculture (aka slash and burn) around Lake Wononscopomuc, planted the trees, which were valued for their acorns, which have a sweet taste and are good for bread-making. The approximate date for this is the early 17th century.

Inside the Grove building is a 1985 project from the late George Kiefer, who analyzed a cross section of one of the white oaks and assigned dates to the rings. The earliest is 1630. Kiefer was the town of Salisbury’s tree warden for many years.

The white oaks come down eventually, usually when the root systems degrade. The trees are top-heavy, and when the roots can no longer support them, they fall down, usually with the help of the strong winds that are a feature of the lake and environs.

To replace the white oaks, Rand has for several years been collecting and germinating the acorns. 

The seedlings are planted in the compost pile at his home and get nursed along for up to four years before they are ready to be planted at the Grove.

The wood from the white oaks that have come down is highly prized for use in restorations and replicas of old wooden sailing ships. Rand explained that the wood is highly water-resistant, and the size of the downed trees means larger pieces can be cut. 

Duke Besozzi runs New England Naval Timbers out of Cornwall, and is the man Rand calls when a white oak comes down at the Grove.

“Seems like every year or so, a white oak comes down there,” he said.

Besozzi has supplied timber for well-known ships such as the Charles W. Morgan at Mystic Seaport and the Honey Fitz, President John F. Kennedy’s yacht.

One of the Grove oaks now forms the rudder of the Bluenose II, which is the national schooner of Canada.

Latest News

Bunny Williams's 
‘Life in the Garden’
Rizzoli

In 1979, interior decorator Bunny Williams and her husband, antiques dealer John Rosselli, had a fateful meeting with a poorly cared for — in Williams’s words, “unspoiled” — 18th-century white clapboard home.

“I am not sure if I believe in destiny, but I do know that after years of looking for a house, my palms began to perspire when I turned onto a tree-lined driveway in a small New England village,” Williams wrote in her 2005 book, “An Affair with a House.” The Federal manor high on a hill, along with several later additions that included a converted carriage shed and an 1840-built barn, were constructed on what had been the homestead property of Falls Village’s Brewster family, descendants of Mayflower passenger William Brewster, an English Separatist and Protestant leader in Plymouth Colony.

Keep ReadingShow less
The Creators: Sitting down with Garet Wierdsma

Garet&Co dancers

Jennifer Almquist

On Saturday, March 9, the people of Norfolk, Connecticut, enjoyed a dance performance by northern Connecticut-based Garet&Co, in Battell Chapel, titled INTERIOR, consisting of four pieces: “Forgive Her, Hera,” “Something We Share,” “bodieshatewomen,” and “I kinda wish the apocalypse would just happen already.”

At the sold-out show in the round, the dancers, whose strength, grace and athleticism filled the hall with startling passion, wove their movements within the intimate space to the rhythms of contemporary music. Wierdsma choreographed each piece and curated the music. The track she created for “Something We Share” eerily contained vintage soundtracks from life guidance recordings for the perfect woman of the ‘50s. The effect, with three dancers in satin slips posing before imaginary mirrors, was feminist in its message and left the viewer full of vicarious angst.

Keep ReadingShow less
Kevin McEneaney, voice of The Millbrook Independent

Kevin McEneaney

Judith O’Hara Balfe

On meeting Kevin McEneaney, one is almost immediately aware of three things; he’s reserved, he’s highly intelligent and he has a good sense of humor.

McEneaney is the wit and wisdom behind The Millbrook Independent, a blog that evolved from the print version of that publication. It's a wealth of information about music venues in this part of Dutchess County interspersed with poetry, art reviews, articles on holidays and other items, and a smattering of science.

Keep ReadingShow less