The Elm That Never Hanged Anyone

In the northwest corner of Washington Square Park stands an English elm often called the oldest known tree in Manhattan. How old it is depends on whom you ask: the Parks Department has described it as more than 300 years old, while other accounts say it was planted around 1790. Either way, it is older than the park around it. Its nickname, the Hangman's Elm, is harder to defend. Tales of executions from its branches first appear in print in the late nineteenth century, long after the events they describe, and there is no public record of anyone being hanged from it. Research into the park's history found that the tree stood on a private farm until the city bought the land in 1827. The one documented execution nearby was of Rose Butler, a young Black woman convicted of arson, who was hanged on a gallows in the old potter's field to the east. The elm is simply very old, and still standing.