Ulmus americana Massachusetts (Framingham)

Ulmus americana Massachusetts (Framingham) The Gates or Rugg elm near Framingham country club. 70 ft. tall, 145 ft. through crown. Photo. by E.H. Wilson, Jan. 9, 1924. The Rugg Elm, which is also known as the Gates Elm, is in Framingham, Massachusetts. Specifically, it is 200 yards from Turnpike Rd., between Framingham and Fayville near the grounds of the Country Club. It was the largest tree in New England (as reported in two sources dating to 1920, please see sources below). In these two sources from 1920, the circumference one and three feet from the ground was 28.5 feet. The spread of the branches was 145 feet, and the height 70 feet. It looks like two trees because the trunk is split close to the bottom, but it is just one. One of these trunks is 14 feet in circumference, while the other is 17 feet. There is a peculiar formation between these two trunks that is called a “nubbin.” The Rugg Elm was estimated between 300-400 years of age in the 1920s. [Simmons 125; Robert Lee (ed.) The Modern City v.5 (Baltimore: Modern City Publishing Co., January 1920), 22.]