Frank Knight and a tree named Herbie
In the world we live in, it is a miraculous thing when the life of a man and a tree are so intertwined that one simply cannot exist without the other. This was the case for centennial Yarmouth Tree Warden, Frank Knight, and a 217-year-old American Elm tree fondly named Herbie.
American Elm #305 at 24 Church Street is featured on the right.
photo credit David Kitchen
Cross-section of "Herbie" at over 200 years old.
Frank Knight, born in Pownal, Maine in 1908, became the volunteer tree warden in Yarmouth, Maine in 1952.
During this time, Dutch Elm disease was developing throughout the northeast, resulting in many infected Elms being cut down to prevent the spread of the fungus from tree to tree. In the first few years of Knight’s role as tree warden, he was forced to cut down many Elms in Yarmouth, except for one especially large tree on the corner of East Main Street and Yankee Drive. The massive tree was Herbie.
Over the next 50 years, Knight was devoted to nursing Herbie back to health, fending off nearly 14 separate cases of Dutch Elm disease.
We've cut disease out of it thirteen different years and each one could have killed it, but it's such a monstrous beautiful tree. I keep an eye on it about every day...and of we detect any disease, they'll come right around the next day and cut it out. So far, we've been fortunate.
Frank Knight in The Notes (October 13, 1998)
Herbie’s ultimate survival, earning the impressive title as the tallest and oldest tree in New England, would not have been possible without Frank Knight who referred to this beloved tree as an "old friend”.
Unlike most American Elms at the time, Herbie was given the chance to grow for over two centuries becoming the state's bicentennial tree in 1976. Nonetheless, in January of 2010, Herbie’s time had come, and 101-year-old Frank Knight made the difficult decision to cut down the world-renowned Elm. Two years later Knight passed away on May 14th, 2012 while in hospice in Scarborough, Maine, at the age of 103.