The Backstory

The Mighty Giant

The American chestnut tree was the tallest, and most common, tree in eastern forests of the U.S.. Nicknamed “Mighty Giant” and “Redwood of the East,” this tree was prized as a source of wood, food, and natural beauty.

Monson's Flynt Park

One of William N. Flynt’s lifelong dreams was to construct a park to exemplify his love of nature and the people of Monson. After many years of purchasing about 200 acres of land which lay west of downtown and with entrances on High Street and Ely Road, his park was finally opened in 1883. On the first level above the street was a large green, set apart for a baseball field; nearby were tennis courts, croquet grounds, and a military training field. Around the field was a horse racing track. The park was most tastefully laid out in walks and trails. There was a pavilion for gatherings and roller skating, rustic seats, bandstand and three towers made of cedars from Cedar Swamp. One tower was beside the well, containing the coldest water, which ran into a natural stone basin. Another, a one-hundred-foot tower, was situated on top of Mt. Ella, making it six hundred feet high above sea elevation. It contained a fine telescope, with which, on a clear day, one could see Boston harbor. The third tower was situated on top of a rocky cliff beside the children’s playground and picnic area. There was also a museum containing many rare curios especially shells and minerals of all kinds. There was also a menagerie of birds and animals in the park. And to the park and all it contained the public was welcomed. After the death of Mr. Flynt and with the advent of the automobile, parks like this went out of favor. For many years the fields were used by the Monson Academy for sports events. After the Academy closed, the land was sold to a private investor. After several years, the town acquired it at a town meeting vote in 1981. It has been maintained and improved by the Parks and Recreational Department for public use.

Courtesy of Monson Historical Society

The forested backdrop on the slopes of Mt. Ella, in Flynt Park, was predominantly American Chestnut.

William N. Flynt

Ely Road Entrance

High Street Entrance

Ecological Disaster

First observed in NYC in 1904, an accidentally imported pathogen, AKA chestnut blight, spread concentrically outward each year with a sickening lethality, from New York City's, Bronx Zoo. The chestnut trees in Monson and every other community from Maine to Mississippi, and as far west as the Ohio River Valley, were killed in a pandemic. About 5 billion trees were lost.

Only forty-four years after the blight’s first appearance in this country, America’s most revered naturalist/writer wrote the following words:

"All words about the American chestnut are now but an elegy for it. This once mighty tree, one of the grandest features of our silva, has gone down like a slaughtered army before a foreign fungus disease, the Chestnut blight." - Donald Culross Peattie, from A Natural History of Trees of Eastern and Central North America, 1948

Courtesy of Lois Melican, American Chestnut Foundation

The airborne fungus, girdles the trees. The above-ground parts die back, the roots continue to live. Today, millions of chestnut roots survive, re-sprouting and dying back again. Unable to reach the canopy for light, the trees are no longer a source of timber or food, and they rarely are able to reproduce. The species, Castanea dentata, has been termed, functionally extinct.

The Solution

Since the onset of the blight, people have been trying to rescue the American chestnut. Over the past 40 years, “back-cross breeding”, utilized by the the American Chestnut Foundation, has been most successful. Naturally blight resistant Chinese chestnuts are crossed with pure American chestnuts, followed by multiple generations bred back to pure American chestnuts. In this way, the Foundation has been able to create a blight-tolerant version of the tree. Genetically, it is 15/16 American and 1/16 Chinese. Without special equipment, it is indiscernible from a pure American chestnut.

Now, with chestnut trees of high blight tolerance, the challenge is shifting. How can American chestnut return to the forest? Chestnuts planted in the shade of other trees do not readily grow or reproduce. How well will they compete in current forest conditions? How can their tolerance to the blight continue to improve? These questions are the focus of wide and ongoing study.

Opportunity Amidst Destruction

The June, 2011 tornado removed the forest canopy across Mt. Ella in Flynt Park. The sun has been shining all the way to the ground for the first time since Monson's period of chestnut death in the 1920’s. Triggered by the wash of light, re-sprouts from the surviving roots of Monson’s lost forest have been growing furiously in densities as high as 282 trees per acre. Sadly, as the trees flourish, they are also dying back, girdled again by the blight fungus which is persistent in the environment. There is a window of time in which new hybrid chestnuts, developed by the American Chestnut Foundation, can be incorporated into the re-emergent forest before the shade returns. These special trees will have the chance to compete to regain their traditional place in the new forest canopy. Their progress will inform future chestnut reforestation efforts throughout eastern forests, and at the same time Monson will recapture a piece of its own history. As evidenced by chestnut re-sprout densities at Mt. Ella, the park’s former observation tower, buggy roads, trails, pavilions, and menagerie, arose among a forested backdrop that was predominantly American chestnut. According to an 1894 map of the Village of Monson, the buggy road traversing the base of Mt. Ella is fittingly named Chestnut Ave. in honor of the tree.

Tornado Passing Over The Summit of Mt. Ella - Flynt Park

Tornado Path from Space

Forest Destruction - Ely Road

Slopes of Mt. Ella - Flynt Park

Planting the first blight-resistant American chestnut saplings at Flynt Park.

A Unique Collaboration

A collaboration between the Replanting Monson Tree Committee http://bit.ly/monsonchestnut, the Monson Parks and Recreation Department, the Tantasqua Chestnut Project http://bit.ly/tantasquachestnut, and the American Chestnut Foundation (ACF) https://www.acf.org/ aims to seize the opportunity that has presented itself in the aftermath of the tornado to restore the American chestnut tree to the slopes of Mt. Ella at Flynt Park. While the Replanting Monson Tree Committee oversees the organization, funding, and implementation of the project, and the Parks and Recreation Department provides support services related to property use, the Tantasqua Chestnut Project has been instrumental in all aspects of the project including volunteering to cut brush, plant trees, harvest and process seeds, start new trees indoors in prep. for planting, design and trial planting protection systems, promote awareness of the chestnut story and the project at public events, and even cross-pollinate native onsite trees with blight resistant pollen to breed a regionally adapted blight resistant genetic line that will someday be incorporated into Monson's Chestnut Forest to improve diversity within the American chestnut comeback.

Late Spring - Prepping Male & Female Flowers for Pollination Time

Early Summer - Hand Applying Blight Resistant Pollen to Female Flowers

Fall - Harvested Resultant Chestnut Bur Containing 3 Blight-Resistant Hybrid Seeds

The Plan

Distinction - The Flynt Park American Chestnut Reforestation Project is the first municipal project of its kind.

Long-Term Plan- To combine volunteer & contracted services to plant/maintain/monitor 500 blight-tolerant chestnut trees amidst five acres of high density native chestnut growth in the tornado path at Flynt Park. (Advanced, blight-tolerant chestnuts, valued at $30,000, provided by ACF at no cost.)
Progress To Date - First trial acre of 100 chestnuts, made possible by 757 volunteer hours, completed in 2019.
Next Steps - Combine Community Preservation Act funding ($23,065) with matching Department of Conservation and Recreation Challenge Grant funding ($20,000) to complete the next two acres (200 more trees). Funding supports the necessary supplies and services (with continuing supplemental volunteer services). -Weed Barrier -Planting Tubes -Caging Materials -Tree Marking -Wildlife Deterrent -Site Preparation -Initial Planting Labor -Drought Watering
Citizen Science - The community will be invited to participate in monitoring activities focused on the study question, “How do blight-tolerant chestnuts compete with forest re-growth in a disturbed landscape?” Results will be utilized by the American Chestnut Foundation to inform future restorations. Documentation will be housed at the Monson Free Library.

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