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At around 9 a.m. Tuesday, a chain saw buzzed as the blade bit into one of the Linden Oak’s limbs. Workers dressed in yellow vests and hard hats on a sunny, humid day used a crane to lower the branches of the tree before wrapping them in chains to secure them and saw them off.
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A handful of people stood along the road at Beach Drive and Rockville Pike in North Bethesda to say goodbye — waiting to witness the removal of the largest white oak in Montgomery County, a tree that was estimated to be more than 300 years old.
The Linden Oak, which was said to be a seedling 25 years before George Washington was born, died last summer. The tree, with a rotting trunk and lost limbs, should be cut down to avoid a safety hazard, authorities decided last month.
Tuesday morning, Kira Lueders, 83, parked her car on the side of the road for one last look at the tree she’s known for 60 years.
“When you’ve had something that’s been living here for over 300 years, providing shelter and an environment for nature, and then it goes away, it’s just sad,” said Lueders, wearing a tan sun hat. “I thought someone should be here, like going to an old friend’s funeral.”
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Helen McCown, 47, a Northern Virginia resident, brought her daughter Sydney McCown, 11, to mourn the Linden Oak.
McCown and her daughter learned of the tree as part of a summer reading assignment that required them to read a newspaper article. Days before the removal, Sydney’s father took her favorite doll, Gabby, to visit the tree.
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“My husband will take one of her toys to different places where he goes, and then he takes photographs of the toy and all its locations,” McCown explained, saying her husband takes the pictures so their daughter can feel connected.
But this time, Sydney was able to see the historic Linden Oak for herself. She took pictures with the tree, her arms raised to the sky, smiling ear to ear.
Days later, the family was back, along with other spectators, to watch the tree come down.
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Sydney, dressed in a pink striped shirt, her hair in twists, looked at the workers with chains and saws in hand. Her smile from her first visit to the oak no longer existed.
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“I’m a little nervous about the tree coming down,” Sydney said, holding her doll. “I don’t want it to come down, because if it comes down it’s going to be in a sculpture, and I’ll miss it.”
Longtime residents gazed at the workers sawing the arms of the tree and expressed sorrow.
Heather Nemcosky, 77, a resident of the Parkwood neighborhood, wearing a blue sun hat, was one of those who came to part ways with the county’s largest white oak tree.
“I’ve lived here since 1975. I’ve loved that tree,” Nemcosky said. “It lost a big branch awhile back and I knew it was doomed. I saw the article in The Post, and I looked to see when it was being removed. I said I have to be there to say goodbye to that tree.”
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In some ways, though, the old oak will live on.
Local chain-saw carver Colin Vale will sculpt the tree into a bench for Montgomery County parks, work that will be done by the end of August. He said the bench will pay homage to the tree’s legacy.
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As workers picked up the limbs of the tree, placing them into a heavy-duty commercial woodchipper, grinding the wood, a biker strolled slowly along the road and came to a halt.
“It’s pretty sad to watch,” he said somberly to no one in particular. “I’ve been a resident for 50 years.”
After five hours of work, the tree’s limbs no longer towered in the sky, and nothing was left except the 20-foot-tall remains of a barren old oak.
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