With a snip of the scissors, Princeton Mayor Liz Lempert officially opened Marquand Park’s new children’s arboretum, tucked away in a small corner of the 17-acre park on Lovers Lane.
“Marquand Park is such a magical place, it’s hard to imagine that it could be more magical. But you can tell – the people are here and the children are here,” Mayor Lempert announced at the April 27 ribbon-cutting.
The children and their parents passed through the gates into the fenced-in arboretum, where they selected young trees and planted them in one of four raised planter boxes. Each child wrote his or her name on a slip of paper and planted it next to their tree.
The children will tend to the saplings over the spring and summer, and then they will transplant their tree to other sites – at Marquand Park or at home in their own yard – in the fall.
The children’s arboretum was inspired by Marquand Park Foundation volunteer Welmoet van Kammen’s observation of a young boy who was looking intently at a very small incense cedar tree in the arboretum. The boy and the tree were about the same height.
“Children can’t see the canopy (top) of a tree because they are too small,” van Kammen said. “They can only see the tree trunk. They cannot comprehend the whole tree.”
That’s when it occurred to her – and to the Marquand Park Foundation – that perhaps a children’s arboretum would pique their interest in trees and nature. And thus the children’s arboretum was born.
But the children’s arboretum is not just about sparking a child’s interest in trees. It is also about giving from one generation to the next generation as each young child plants a tree, said Robert Wells, president of the Marquand Park Foundation.
An arboretum is a museum for trees, Wells said. But unlike museums, which are full of inanimate objects, an arboretum is filled with animate – or living – objects, he revealed.
“This arboretum is really not for you. It is for your children and grandchildren,” Wells told the parents.
When a child plants a tree, he or she is giving something to the next generation, he said. Successive generations will benefit from the tree planted by each child.
In fact, visitors to Marquand Park are benefiting from an earlier decision by the Marquand family to donate the park to the former Princeton Borough.
Marquand Park began as a 30-acre farm purchased in 1842 by Judge Richard Stockton Field, who taught at Princeton University. Field was the great-grandson of Richard Stockton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Before Judge Field built his home, he hired consultants who spent years designing the grounds. It was fashionable at that time to collect and display unusual or exotic trees.
The property was purchased in 1871 by Susan Dod Brown, who added to the exotic trees planted on the grounds. She sold the property to Allan Marquand, who was an art history professor at Princeton University, in 1887.
The Marquand family continued to add trees to the estate, which remained in the family’s possession until 1953. The family donated 17 acres of land to the former Princeton Borough for use as a public park and playground. The Marquand Foundation was formed in 1955 to maintain the park.
Meanwhile, Allan Forsyth, Professor Marquand’s grandson, was on hand for the opening of the children’s arboretum.
Forsyth sat quietly and watched the swirl of activity in the park, as children and their parents planted the saplings and then embarked on a treasure hunt in the park.
“I love (the children’s arboretum). My grandmother was passionate about flowers and trees. I think my mother and my two aunts would be a little surprised, but I think they would love it, too,” Forsyth said.
