The Fletcher Oak is fallen.

It happened around 10 a.m., Aug. 9, 2005. For members of the Sweet Briar College community it was the passing of a dear friend.

The giant northern red oak stood near Fletcher Hall. Since 1906 students, faculty, and staff walked beneath its expansive canopy. The trunk's thick girth suggested its advanced years, although its true age may never be known. Mike Abbott, an arborist with Bartlett Tree Experts in Charlottesville, has cared for the tree with Sweet Briar grounds supervisor Donna Meeks for five years. He thinks it could be as much as three centuries old — an astounding feat for Quercus rubra.

"It was lucky to survive the years since Sweet Briar became a college. It was already an elderly tree a hundred years ago," Abbott said.

Linda Fink, SBC biology professor, hazarded a more conservative top-end estimate of 200 years — about the typical lifespan of the fast-growing species. The Fletcher Oak's time on Earth likely will remain a mystery, because disease and decay destroyed the telltale rings at its base.

Named a Heritage Tree in 1997 by the Tree Stewards of the Greater Lynchburg Area, the stalwart specimen was weakening even then. Concern deepened in 2001, and it was pruned to ease and balance the load it carried. Massive lateral branches also were braced to the trunk for stability. Meeks and Abbott commenced a close watch on the old oak.

Ironically, with safety on her mind, Meeks had just asked Abbott to look at worsening cracks that worried her. He was due on campus at noon on Aug. 9. "When Donna called I thought, 'I hope this isn't the time that I have to say it's time to take it down,' " Abbott said. "I never got the chance."

When it toppled, the oak's great limbs — in full summer foliage and festooned with clusters of green acorns — sprawled across a rain-drenched Sweet Briar Drive. The core lay exposed, splintered and hollowed from the pervasive rot that felled the tree.

Grounds and physical plant crews lost no time clearing the road. As word of the oak's demise quickly spread, faculty and staff came to pay respects. And though it no longer stood, the tree's former grandeur and sheer magnitude were still on display. The jumbled branches dwarfed workers scrambling over its lichen-covered bark.

The subject of the poem "Fletcher Oak," ("There is a tree here so beautiful it even has a name ... ") by former writer-in-residence Mary Oliver, the tree is named for Sweet Briar's founding family. For a century it was a familiar and comforting presence on campus. But, in a message to the College community, Elisabeth Muhlenfeld, SBC president, noted that another takes its place.

The Centennial Newman Fletcher Oak was a gift from the family of former SBC Board chairman J. Wilson Newman in honor of his 92nd birthday. Transplanted to its present site in 2001, the northern red oak thrives near the place where its predecessor stood.

And in her remarks on the old tree's passing, Muhlenfeld suggested a beginning, not an end: "[It is] a momentous event, marking one important tie with the founders of the College, but in a way, clearing the way for the 100th class of new students, to arrive in less than two weeks."

Aaron Mahler, SBC director of network services, took pictures of the tree the day it fell. Please visit Mahler's web site to view the photographs.