More than 150 years ago, the sycamore along Little Pipe Creek in New Windsor sprung from the earth as a meager sapling.
Now the tree, which has survived through the Civil War, the Industrial Revolution and the Great Depression, stands an impressive 112 feet and boasts a trunk circumference of 27 feet ? dimensions that recently earned it the title of co-champion of “Maryland?s Biggest Tree” award.
John Elmer Smith, who lives on the dairy farm where the tree sits, remains humble about having a natural wonder in his back yard.
“It just happened to be on the piece of ground we have,” said Smith, 82.
“The good Lord planted the seed. I had nothing to do with it.”
But volunteers with the Maryland Big Tree program, which measures and lists the state?s most impressive trees, bubbled with excitement about finding another champion tree to share the title of state?s largest with a silver maple in Cecil County.
“I was thrilled to have the opportunity to see and measure this excellent example of a species very familiar to many Maryland residents,” said John Bennett, volunteer manager for the program.
“And it has even more potential for growth, and it?s very healthy.”
The silver maple ? which stands 114 feet but has shorter branches than Carroll County?s sycamore ? is losing limbs and could be approaching the twilight of its life, he said.
The Smith family thinks fondly of the sycamore, which has served as the backdrop in the lives of seven generations.
“When people see it, they think it?s huge and tall, and theyhave to estimate the height,” Smith said.
His grandson, Paul, now a grown man, remembers crawling inside the sycamore?s hollowed-out bottom to play as a child.
“A lot of people remember playing in the hole,” said Dori Murphy, another Maryland Big Tree volunteer.
“It?s a piece of history up in that area.”
