Hangman's Elm

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Hangman's Elm photo: srosenstock

Hangman's Elm, or simply "The Hanging Tree", is an English Elm located at the Northwest corner in Washington Square Park, in New York City. It stands 110 feet (33.52 m) tall and has a diameter of 56 inches (1.42 m).

In 1989, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation determined the English Elm was 310 years old, making it the oldest known tree in Manhattan. The elm has outlived the city’s other most historic trees: Peter Stuyvesant’s pear tree at the northeast corner of 13th St. and Third Ave. and the great Tulip poplar at Shorakapkok in Washington Heights.

Whether or not any real hangings took place at this location is open to debate. According to legend, traitors were hanged at this location during the American Revolutionary War. Later, the Marquis de Lafayette is said to have witnessed the festive hanging of 20 highwaymen here in 1824. Rose Butler, hanged here in 1820, was the last person in New York State to be executed for arson.The notorious hanging bough was removed in 1992 by the Parks Department.

However, other historians including Luther S, Harris, author of Around Washington Square : An Illustrated History of Greenwich Village, contend the name is a misnomer and that no legal hangings were conducted from this tree. Public executions were performed from gallows on the site, which created some confusion.