By Town Historian Fred Wallace
Last year (2012), after a long struggle, lovers of Framingham history lost a treasure when the Rugg-Gates house on upper Gates Street (street established in 1719) was demolished by the Mass. Department of Transportation, declaring it a public safety hazard. Equally dear to our hearts was the great tree that stood in front of it for almost two hundred years – The Gates Elm, or as some called it, the Rugg-Gates Elm.
In 1704, Jonathan Rugg of Marlborough purchased fifty acres of land at this location from Joseph Buckminster and built a home and blacksmith shop on the west side of what was then just a cart path. In subsequent years he had a family, and one of his grandsons, Daniel, built a house on the opposite side of the path.
Framingham folklore tells us that an elm tree was planted in front of that house by one of the Ruggs in the year 1774. It stood proudly before the original house for almost two hundred years, and grew to gigantic proportions. By the 1950’s its girth was almost fifty feet and its branches extended more than one hundred feet.
When the Massachusetts Turnpike was built in the 1950s it is said that the water table in this area changed and the tree began to die. By 1960, it was a skeleton of its former self and the town’s department cut it down soon after.
Top image: Gate Street elm largest elm in N.E. owned by Mr. Dumont, Framingham, Mass circa 1935-1955, Digital Commonwealth