Avery Oak

[3][4][2] Clark, who owned the house where the tree was located, also donated a square of land around it extending seven and a half feet from three sides of it, and to East Street on the fourth.

In the terrible winter of 1723, when the snow lay so thick over the landscape that the residents could not access their woodlot, another Avery chopped off the top of the tree to keep his family from freezing.

[2] Hundreds of people gathered to see the fallen tree, and the police protected it while the Historical Society made plans for how to dispose of it.

[3] The Avery Oak at that time had limbs full of crooks and angles, which Lord Bacon called knee timber, and which was particularly required in ship building.

[5] The ship builders, presumably Nicholson, made several offers to buy the tree, eventually rising to "the unheard of price of $70," but the owner would not sell.