The Tallest Sycamore Tree in Pennsylvania – Berks County circa 1920

Like many nature-lovers, I am moved by the enormity and grace of large trees.

Last year, I shared a postcard image of Pennsylvania’s largest and oldest holly tree, which is still alive in York County.

Recently, I found this hand-colored photograph of a towering sycamore tree, more than 250 years old in 1920.

(That would make the sycamore a contemporary of York County’s holly tree, and establish it as a “Penn Charter Tree”, a tree alive when the Pennsylvania land grant was made to William Penn.)

H. Winslow Fegley, prolific photographer of Berks County history, took the shot (and copyrighted the image) sometime around 1920.

This handsome arboreal monument was identified on the Rothermel homestead near Maidencreek.

The postcard was not mailed.

I cannot find a definitive indication that the tree is still standing.

I hope that it is.

I love sycamores – huge sturdy branches that are not too tall for a boy or girl to reach, and to climb.

A few ancient sycamores still line the Conestoga River where I canoed in my youth, and one huge sycamore still overshadows a much-traveled path on my undergraduate University campus.