Note 44 — POEMS OF PHILIP FRENEAU
Reading edition
This was published in the National Gazette of March 8, 1792, with this introduction: "Legislatures and city corporations have ever been inimical to trees in cities.—About nine years ago the attempt was made in Philadelphia to cut down all the trees—The public, however, demurred to the decree, which, together with Mr. Hopkinson's Columnal Orator, saved the lives of these useful and amusing companions.
"In a neighboring city, a similar attempt was made about a year ago by its corporation. A universal extirpation was ordered, without respect to age or quality, by the 10th of June, 1791.—The public interfered in this, as in the other case, and the trees were saved,[a] except a few, which having been injudiciously placed, above a century ago, had nearly grown into the inhabitants' houses; and consequently suffered the sentence of the law....