CHESTERFIELD - "It takes four people, hand to
hand, to circle around it," says Tom Duston, describing the massive
red oak tree found recently in the Friedsam Town
Forest.
The centuries-old tree has a trunk diameter of nearly 6 feet.
Duston, co-chairman of the Chesterfield Conservation
Commission, said old-growth trees are not uncommon in the Friedsam Town
Forest. Highlights along the Sargent trail in the Friedsam forest include
a 200-year-old ash tree, a massive cherry tree, and a large maple.
 However, the red oak, about 325
years old, dwarfs even these ancient neighbors.
"It's probably one of the oldest thing's in town,
other than the rocks,"
Duston said.
The tree was discovered about a month ago, through
something of a coincidence. Last winter, the town ordered a modest timber
cut in the Friedsam forest, to allow for more open areas.
"We were in the area to check on the logging
progress, and we came upon (the tree) while a few of us were hiking,"
Duston said.
The red oak can be found throughout Canada and the
Eastern and Midwestern areas of the United States. The trees have been
known to reach 400 years old.
 However, because of heavy
tree-cutting in New Hampshire in the past few centuries, trees the size of
the Friedsam red oak have become a rarity.
"A lot of places in this area were sheep pasture,
even up until the 1920s," said hiker Mark Mynott of Westmoreland, who
often travels great distances to find and photograph old-growth trees.
"The sheep farmers just mowed down trees wholesale."
The sheep industry declined after the 1920s, and N.H.
forests began to grow again. In an agricultural age, New Hampshire was
only about 20 percent forest, Mynott said; now, it's about 86 percent
forest.
Why did the Friedsam red oak survive?
"It might have been growing crooked at one point,
which would have made it unsuitable for carpentry," Mynott said.
"In a place that would be inaccessible for logging or unsuitable for
pasture, you might find pockets of old-growth trees.
"Some trees might have been left because they were
straddling a property line.... In mountainous areas and ridges, if the
tree was up high enough, they didn't get cut."
 The
Friedsam red oak may fall into the category of a border tree. It is fairly
close to a stone wall and neighbors several other very large trees. Some
nearby trees have trunk diameters of 4 to 4½ feet, but don't come close
to matching the impressive red oak.
Placed historically, the red oak would have been at
least a century old as the ink was drying on the Declaration of
Independence. Should the tree be cut, its stump of the now would mea-sure
6 feet across, large enough for a family to use as a picnic table.
Fortunately for the tree, that seems unlikely. For the
moment, the tree will probably enjoy the same undisturbed peace and I
quiet it has had for the past three centuries. It lies somewhat off the
beaten path, hidden by other large trees.
But visitors may be in its future. The town plans to
make it a featured stop along the Sargent trail, along with an over-grown
apple orchard of about 50 trees that was discovered at about the same time
as the oak.
"We've got other projects we're working on; but I'm hoping we'll have
a trail put in by this fall," Duston said. "It'll be a great
trail for snow shoeing and hiking.
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