Treestones: A Grave (and Beautiful) Matter
Story and photos by Jennifer Gulick, Senior Consulting Urban Forester, Davey Resource Group, Jenny.gulick@davey.com
Picture an urban forest of
mature trees that provide peace
and comfort, educate people, and
are historic assets as beautiful
as any work of art—but they don't
require any maintenance and have
lifespans of thousands of years. To
municipal arborists that may sound
too good to be true, but you could
have all of this and more if you managed a cemetery with a population
of "treestones."
Treestones are grave markers carved
in the shape of trees, or more precisely in the shapes of tree trunks,
stumps, and logs. Dead men may
tell no tales, but their tombstones
surely do, and treestones are particularly intriguing for both their history
and the stories they tell.
The use of the tree motif as a grave
marker arose in the 1800s during
the Victorian Age and the associated Rural Cemetery Movement,
which championed the idea of the
cemetery as a retreat for the living.
New cemeteries were built on the
outskirts of towns with rolling hills,
flowers, trees, and water features
and were meant to be a place of
rest for the dead and comfort for
the living.
The Victorian Age influenced the
style of everything from furniture
to clothing to architecture and
even gravestones. During this era,
grave markers became bigger,
more elaborate, and filled with
poignant, personalized inscriptions and symbols. And since so
many people used cemeteries as
parks then, families of means
would spend fortunes on large,
showy mausoleums and elaborate
headstones that told a story, so
visitors could admire and remem-
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The anchor, nautical rope, doves, and a cross represent the deceased's commitment to
the Christian religion.
The broken branches represent the number of family members buried in the plot surrounding this treestone. The limb at the base of the trunk provided the canvas for the carver to
engrave the family's information.
City Trees
