Herbie in the Snow on his final day!
For many of us, we will never have a story like this with a tree. We could only wish we had a realationship with a tree in our town that touched so many over the years as Herbie did, but Herbie is a unique story and can only be told by someone who was there, who knew Herbie like Frank Knight and Phil Norris did. So here is thier story. Enjoy. 
Herbie as he begins to Fall!
Herbie on the ground, but look for him in the future in furniture and in local art. Herbie will never really die!
Here's my own story concerning "Herbie".
"Nothing lasts forever. He's had a good long life and so have I." So
said Frank Knight, Yarmouth's 101 year-old tree warden as he stood by
the fallen trunk of "Herbie", the largest American Elm in New England
shortly after it was taken down on Jan. 19th. Frank has been watching over the tree for 50 years.
Three of us tree guys had driven down to Yarmouth, Maine that morning in a blinding snowstorm to witness the passing of the behemoth and to
visit with Frank. When we arrived we were met with a media spectacle;
television vans with telescoping booms jutting out of their roofs,
camera crews walking around pointing microphones in peoples' faces,
dozens of cameras on tripods, all focused on a strange sight about 100
feet away. Whitney Tree Service had, over the weekend, removed the
whole top of the tree and what was left looked like a giant saguaro
cactus towering over the nearby houses.
We were warmly greeted by Deb Hopkins, Frank's assistant, who has
already taken over most of Frank's duties as tree warden. Deb and I
had been emailing back and forth for over a month discussing the
capricious nature of elm lumber. The town of Yarmouth wants to do
something special with the wood from Herbie and they had heard about
the elm cutting board project that Blue Hill pioneered in 2002. I had
sent Deb a complimentary Blue Hill elm cutting board and had provided her with photos and a detailed description of how we had cut up and
dried the lumber from an elm tree that had stood in downtown Blue Hill for 190 years.
The air was suddenly rent by the sound of a chainsaw as Matt Whitney
started cutting the notch which would decide Herbie's fate. He was
using a Husqvarna 395, with a 54" bar which he had bought specifically
for this job. The tree was six-and-a-half feet in diameter at breast
height and had stood 110 feet tall in its prime. When the notch was to
his satisfaction he moved around to make the backcut. The tree was
very close to a major trunk of electric wires so Whitney's crew had
attached a stout line to the top of the tree and were using a logging
truck to pull it in the opposite direction. Matt completed the backcut
and signaled for the truck to take up the strain. When they had put as
much tension as they dared on the rope and the tree hadn't budged,
they attached a second rope to the top and pulled that one with a boom truck.
Still no movement. Matt revved the big saw and cut a little deeper
into the hinge. He shut off the saw and stepped back and again
signaled for both trucks to pull. There was a loud crack and light
appeared in the saw kerf and Herbie teetered and then came thundering to the ground.
We all gathered around the stump and Pete Lammert, of the Maine Forest
Service, brought out a whisk broom and cleared the sawdust away so we
could count the rings. He counted the rings on the fallen section
while I counted the rings on the stump. I started in the middle and
worked my way out using a penknife to prick each annual ring. I was
amazed at how far apart the rings were when the tree was young,
indicating rapid growth, but after the first hundred years the growth
slowed and by the time I neared the bark at the outer rim the rings
were no further apart than a millimeter. Pete came up with 212 years
and I counted 215. Pete said that that was OK for a rough count and
that we would do it again when it was warm and not snowing and we could sand the wood smooth.
Frank Knight came around and posed by the stump leaning on a cane and
one of the reporters shouted out, "How does it feel to see the tree
lying there?"
"I always thought I would be the one lying there," replied Frank.
"You won!" cried Pete Lammert.
