In 1779 Washington sent Mad Anthony Wayne to storm the fort on Stony Point in the Hudson highlands. When asked by Washington whether he could carry the fort, Wayne replied: “I’ll storm hell if you will only plan it!” Under a black walnut tree, in the stillness of the night, Wayne gave orders to his men, and as stealthily as tigers they approached the fort and surprised it. In the early morning Wayne wrote to the Commander in Chief, “The fort and garrison and Colonel Johnston are ours.” The walnut tree has perished. [Illustration: a black walnut tree at Stony Point] Near Seaconnet, Rhode Island, stood a venerable sycamore tree, the only great tree left in that section of the state by the British when they evacuated it in October, 1779. Seaconnet Channel was the scene of one of the most dashing exploits of the War of Independence. The British had blocked the channel with the warship, “Pigot,” which was armed with twelve eight-pounders and ten swivels. Captain Silas Talbot undertook the capture of the “Pigot.” Embarking sixty men on the coasting schooner “Hawke” which was armed with only three three-pounders and small arms, he sailed under cover of darkness. Grappling the enemy, he boarded, drove the crew below, coiled the cables over the hatchway to secure his prisoners, and carried off his prize to Stonington. In Charleston until 1849 there was a beautiful magnolia tree which spread its branches over more than two hundred square feet. Under this tree General Benjamin Lincoln held a council in 1780 to determine whether Charleston, then besieged by Sir Henry Clinton, should be evacuated. It was resolved to remain, but a few weeks later the Americans surrendered to the British, who had been reinforced by Lord Cornwallis. At Lake Drummond in the Dismal Swamp in Virginia, there is a tall tree under which Washington is reputed to have passed a night in Colonial times. When Thomas Moore, the Irish poet, visited Norfolk in 1834, he heard the story of a young man who became mentally unbalanced on the death of his beloved. Refusing to admit her death, he believed that she was living deep within the swamp. Under that impression he wandered into its solitudes and perished. Moore used this legend as the basis for his touching ballad “The Lake of the Dismal Swamp,” which commences: “They made her a grave, too cold and damp For a soul so warm and true; And she’s gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp, Where, all night long, by a fire-fly lamp, She paddles her white canoe. And her fire-fly lamp I soon shall see, And her paddle I soon shall hear; Long and loving our life shall be, And I’ll hide the maid in a cypress tree, When the footstep of death is near.” The last of our historical trees is a white oak in the eastern part of the village of Flushing on Long Island a few miles from New York. George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends, preached under it in 1672, and afterward it was held in deep regard by the Quakers.