Samuel Parsons, a nurseryman responsible for the planting of Central Park in Manhattan, purchased the cutting that produced the Weeping Beech while travelling in Belgium in 1846.

[12] The adjacent Weeping Beech Park was created in 1945 in order to protect the John Bowne House,[13] which was designated a museum in 1947.

Due to encroaching development from the proposed extension of the New York City Subway's Flushing Line in 1923, the house was moved twice, the second time to Weeping Beech Park.

[16] The Homestead is listed on the National Register of Historic Places[1] and is also separately a New York City landmark.

[21] The tree started suffering from poor health in the late 1960s, and was being given fertilizer in an unsuccessful attempt to prolong its life.

[24] A teacher at Flushing High School, Margaret I. Carman, had devised the idea for a trail; the park entrance at Bowne Street has a green named after her in honor of that vision.