City, Citing Safety Hazard, to Chop Down Gilded Age Beech Tree at Edward King House

NEWPORT, RI—The dying beech tree at the Newport Art Museum was given a funeral last spring. Another lost beech at the Redwood Library was similarly mourned in May. Now, tree lovers are bracing for the loss of yet another magnificent city tree: the Fernleaf Eurpopean Beech standing beside the Edward King Senior Center and the Aquidneck Park playground.

On Tuesday, the Newport Arboretum invited everyone to King Street, one block below Bellevue Avenue, to pay a last visit to the beech tree or leave a memory on Twitter or Instagram, hashtag #EdwardKingBeech.

"We ask all Newporters to take a minute out of their day today to honor this grand tree, well over 150 years old, which has given us so much collective joy," the tree society members said in a media release. "Visit the site, have a moment of silence, or leave a note to the tree on Instagram or Twitter using #EdwardKingBeech. Let us know what she meant to you."

According to Scott Wheeler, the city's tree warden, the city's public works department has been monitoring the tree for about a decade. The hope was it could be saved. It was part of the Lighting of the Beeches last April, when Newporters turned on laser projection lights to uplight the canopies and call attention to the danger of losing the city's "Gilded Age forest," he said.

But the tree had been damaged. One big limb was lost, and the tree further deteriorated over the summer. Out of concern that its massive limbs could come crashing down, its fate became inevitable.

"Unfortunately our very wet spring followed by drought was the last straw," Wheeler said. The city decided it was a hazard and has posted it for removal. He expects the work to begin over the next few weeks, depending on the contractor's schedule.

The tree society had hoped "to coordinate a more elaborate send-off similar to last spring’s Art Museum event during Arboretum Week," he said, but time may have run out.

"Certainly, every child who has visited the playground at Aquidneck Park has taken time to dive under the cover of swooping branches and clamber over gnarled roots," the tree society members wrote. "The up-winged branches of this graceful beech seem poised to almost lift it off the ground. Before its deterioration this past year, the beech could be comfortably described as once one of Newport's most beautiful trees. But like so many of our Gilded Age European Beeches, this wonderful tree has suddenly succumbed to age and
environmental pressures and is no longer safe to be left standing."