What is the oldest tree in Sunderland, Massachusetts?
The oldest tree in Sunderland is the Buttonball Tree, an American sycamore on North Main Street in the town centre. Tradition holds that it seeded before 1665, which puts it well over 350 years old and by some accounts close to 400. It measured 782 centimetres round at chest height in 2019, over 34 metres tall, with a crown spreading about 43 metres, and it is widely called the largest tree in Massachusetts. It stands on a public verge, free, with a plaque installed beside it in 1987.
Sunderland is in the Connecticut River valley in western Massachusetts, roughly 25 minutes north of Amherst by road, and there is no public transport to the tree. It stands on the verge of North Main Street in the middle of the village, so there is no park to enter and no gate: you park, walk over and put a hand on the bark. A commemorative plaque went in beside it in 1987. The measurements date from November 2019: 782 centimetres round at chest height, over 34 metres tall, an average spread of 43 metres. An arbor column revisited the tree in April 2026 and readers reported the girth has grown since, which is a good sign rather than a figure to quote. The age is tradition rather than a count of rings. The town holds that the tree seeded before 1665, and the stone plaque makes the point by dating it against the signing of the Constitution in 1787, by which time it was already large. The local claim goes further, that it is the widest tree this side of the Mississippi.
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