The tree is breathtaking, so no words will do, except to see living testimony that HE and Mother Nature rule.
Trees like this were not planted by William Penn, but were growing before 1681, the time when Penn arrived to establish his Pennsylvania Colony after receiving a land grant from Charles II.
And the birds are happy that Street Road, an early straight engineered road from The Delaware River to the Susquehanna, was diverted around their habitat at The Friends Meeting House.
According to one estimate, the tree could be 400 years old.
From The Hunt Magazine...
The London Grove Oak stands in front of a Quaker meeting house about two miles west of Route 1, where the West Street Road jogs on to the Newark Road.
“I become speechless every time I see it,” says Chadds Ford arborist Robb King.
“There is literally nothing like this anywhere in the world.”
A plaque attached to the trunk indicates this is one of the region’s remaining Penn Oaks, an oak tree that is believed to have been alive before 1682, when William Penn first visited Pennsylvania. It is literally part of Penn’s Woods deeded to him as payment of a debt owed Penn’s father by King Charles II. A 1690 incorporation document of the London Grove Quaker Meeting, currently archived at Swarthmore, mentions a tree on the site long before the original meetinghouse was constructed. Whether the tree in the document is the tree that survives cannot be determined.
King guesses the tree is anywhere from 325 to 400 years old. He can’t be sure until the tree dies, a cross section is taken across the trunk, and the growth rings are counted.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.