The wind brought down the top of an old Sitka Spruce in Sitka National Park. The Tree was named Methuselah. It stood when the Jamestown was founded, the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, and when Bering and Cherenkov sailed from Russia to the new world. The tree was two centuries old when our nation declared independence. It was two and a half centuries old when Baranof fought the battle of Sitka with the Tlingit near where the tree stood. Because of the danger the tree posed the National Park Service cut the rest of it down. An old friend is gone, its remains will nourish the new recruits that will grow in its place.
