The Silver Maple is being cut down by workers and removed. It was one of the older trees in Long Branch. Photo courtesy of Andy Choles.
One of the oldest trees in the Long Branch community is now gone.
A Silver Maple, dubbed Old Faithful, on Twenty Seventh Street, stood over the area for more than five generations, according to a local historian.
“Toronto Forestry in February reluctantly removed the largest Silver Maple on record in Long Branch,” said Bill Zufelt, of the History and Cultural Committee South Etobicoke.
Zufelt said a severe wind storm earlier this year severed a major branch of the tree and a City arborist examination revealed its hollowing trunk.
The tree, dubbed Old Faithful, stood on Twenty Seventh Street for five generations. Here you can see the size of its trunk as it is being removed by workers. Photo courtesy of Andy Choles
“When this happens Toronto Forestry immediately issues a removal order to maintain public safety and avoid any possible liability issues,” he wrote.
The historian said ‘Old Faithful’ was recorded in the Long Branch Tree Canopy data base and due to its massive size, age, and history slated as a ‘potential ‘Heritage Tree.’
Zufelt said the tree’s original sapling land was on Indigenous Territory which then became part of the Colonel Samuel Smith Tract after the Toronto Purchase in 1796.
Tree dubbed Titan is one of the older trees in Long Branch and is deemed a heritage tree.
The land became part of the Moses Appleby Farm in the 1850s. Appleby was the first Ward 1 Councillor for the Borough of Etobicoke.
In 1911, Colonel Fredrick Burton Robbins bought the Appleby farm and developed it into 50 lots called ‘Pine Beach’.
Robbins was the founder of the Downsview aerodrome in WWI.
This one is named Stop 26 after a streetcar stop and deemed a heritage tree and listed on the Long Branch Garden tour.
“Personally speaking losing her was a ’gut punch’ but please remember that her century of unconditional gifts of fresh air and habitat made Long Branch a better place to live today,” Zufelt said.
Long Branch has some of the oldest trees in Canada, including the so called “Tree Amigos” which among them have been growing in the area for more than 600 years.
The first is dubbed Big Red, and is located at Park Boulevard and Long Branch Ave, was Long Branch’s first Heritage Tree. It escaped the great Long Branch Hotel fire of 1958 and majestically served as a living beacon for the Royal Canadian Legion’s 101 Long Branch Cenotaph ever since.
This is Big Red which is also deemed an Ontario Heritage Tree.
The Red Oak, dubbed Big Red, is more than 200-year-old and was chosen as the first heritage tree in Long Branch in 2018.
A second Silver Maple, dubbed Stop 26, at 42 Ash Cr., was once featured in the Toronto Star as a Tree of the Week.
The Silver Maple is the last of a grove of trees at the former location of Colonel Fredrick B. Robin’s gates to the Pine Beach residential community around 1910 at Lakeshore Boulevard. Stop 26 was the Mimico-Port Credit Rail-tram stop number 26.
The red oak third heritage tree, called Titan, is estimated to be 110-feet tall, and is said to be the largest red oak found in the west end. It is estimated to be between 250 and 275 years old.
All three heritage trees are part of a Long Branch Garden Tour