The Cabotville Sycamores
The sycamores have survived hurricanes, floods, an industrial revolution and the onslaught of modern urbanization. These handsome trees were growing here in 1848 when the citizens of Cabotville petitioned the legislature for the right to incorporate as a town. The General Court of Massachusetts approved the request with one modification that the lawmakers change the name of the new town to Chicopee.
In the 1850s the trees were less than fifty feet from a busy rail line. A spur line of the Connecticut River Railroad ran along the Chicopee River linking Chicopee Junction with the textile mills in Chicopee Falls.
On this site following the Mexican War, the Ames Sword Company established a bronze foundry intending to produce finely crafted statues and memorials. In 1853 the entire operation was placed under the direction of Silas Mosman. The company's first commission was the statue of Benjamin Franklin on the lawn of the Boston City Hall. The employees of the company were given rail passes so they could attend the dedication ceremonies in Boston on September 17, 1856.
By the 1870s the Ames Works was creating Civil War Memorials for city and town squares on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line. When the company's Chicopee River forge cast the bronze doors for the east and west wings of the capitol building, two special flat bed rail cars carried the precious cargo to Washington, D.C..
Beneath these stately trees, the Boston and Maine Railroad built a new station. In the 1880s while Chicopee's George Dexter Robinson was governor of Massachusetts, special trains were dispatched to the station. The picturesque little building became known as Robinson Station.
The Cabotville Sycamores were mature specimens in 1890, the year Chicopee became a city. The nearly 200 year old trees were designated Heritage Trees by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' Heritage Tree Care Program in 1999.
Marker is at the intersection of Front Street and Center Street (Massachusetts Route 116), on the right when traveling west on Front Street.
Courtesy hmdb.org
