One sapling pear tree stands amid a patch of tall grass in Fairfield Hills. Others are in an open swath where a new walkway cuts through the field. Another young tree sits within view of a picnic table alongside the Victory Garden. On each tree is a small tag — a clue to its story.

Monday afternoon found David Boyle, a Newtown resident and commercial arborist representative with Bartlett Tree Experts, checking on the trees — several of a total of ten recently planted in town are located at Fairfield Hills. The trees grew from seeds of a tree that had survived 9/11 where it stood in the World Trade Center plaza when the Twin Towers collapsed. The original tree is called the Survivor Tree.

Bartlett Tree Experts in 2011 had harvested fruit from the Survivor Tree, according to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum information. Two years later, the Survivor Tree Seedling program began. The 9/11 Memorial gives seedlings from the Survivor Tree to communities that have endured tragedy.

To donate the trees to places that have experienced “great loss,” as a sign of “perseverance and strength,” is what the tree symbolizes, Mr Boyle said. On Monday as he walked from one tree to the next, he noted that his company had partnered with the 9/11 Memorial to propagate the trees. “We babied them along,” he said. They also had a partnership with students at John Bowne High School in the Flushing neighborhood of Queens, who cared for the trees until they were ready for planting. “Through many hands” the trees found their way to Newtown, he said. “The tree lives on the tenet of resilience.”

He is glad that “someone was resourceful enough to find an admirable way for the tree to live on.”

Mr Boyle had moved to town several years ago, and was here during 12/14. Since then he has become acquainted with “some of the families that suffered,” and therefore feels good to be a part of the trees now growing where the public can see them.

The particular variety of pear tree, a callery pear, lives for about 45–50 years, he said. The trees could be propagated and the “progeny can go on. It’s an easy tree to do that with.” Was that the long-term plan for the pears?

“It could be,” he said.

The Survivor Tree

A YouTube video produced by Bartlett tells the tree’s story:

The first frame opens with the statement that when the World Trade Center fell, “One tree survived through the wreckage.” From the seeds of the Survivor Tree come 450 descendants. While looking at the Bartlett tags around the trees Monday, Mr Boyle pointed out that they were numbered, representing which among those 450 they were.

The video next shows a frame with the sign for the Survivor Tree Program and volunteers moving small pots with saplings growing in them. Next is a scene from John Bowne High School as students receive the trees.

David McMaster, Bartlett vice president, then explained his company’s partnership with the high school. The video shows the trees arriving at the school where they are upsized from one-gallon to five-gallon containers. Soil is moistened, and the students work to transplant the trees.

Mr McMaster then spoke with the students, saying he is happy about the project, and asks their thoughts. Regarding the tree project, one students named Steve answered, “It’s nice we could leave footmarks of people who have been, and we are still keeping them with us. We’re not forgetting them.”

Students then tagged each tree with the Bartlett name on a small metal medallion. Students next placed the trees in a holding area where they are hooked up to a drip irrigation line. School Assistant Principal Steve Perry “particularly loves” the project and talks about the students who are “now part of continuing the spirit of New York City and continuing to raise trees from the Survivor Tree.”

Watch the video at youtube.com/watch?v=MhPSl13Azps