Letter: Lone Military Tract witness tree may stand near Liverpool High School

To the editor:
One of the greatest natural wonders in Central New York is the old maple grove near Liverpool High School. This grove contains some of the area’s oldest and largest trees. It is a rare old growth forest, with many sugar maple, red maple, beech and shagbark hickory trees over 200 years old.
The oldest and largest tree is a sugar maple 120 feet tall, with a trunk more than four and a half feet in diameter. This tree could be the area’s only surviving Military Tract survey witness tree. The Military Tract was laid out in 1790 to provide lands for veterans of the Revolutionary War. A witness tree was a prominent tree a surveyor would mark to indicate a Military Tract lot boundary. There was a sugar maple witness tree on this site, and this tree bears scars that could have been the surveyor’s work. This tree could be more than 400 years old, which means that it could have been alive when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in 1620. This could be the finest example of our New York state tree in the entire state. Artist Maria Rizzo painted this tree as “The Old Maple Tree” in her “Trees of Onondaga” series. The grove’s tallest tree is another sugar maple 128 feet tall.
The grove contains the tallest red maple in New York state (126 feet), and the finest beech and shagbark hickory trees I’ve ever seen.
I am a member of the Native Tree Society, an Internet group dedicated to the study of trees, and I have been studying the maple grove near Liverpool High School for several years.
The grove is easily accessible by a paved trail leading from the former Wetzel Road Elementary School. The grove is a priceless treasure that should be preserved for posterity.
For more information, you may call me, Tom Howard, at 452-0805, or email me at [email protected].
Tom Howard
North Syracuse