[Plaque says: This tree was planted by General Robert E. Lee while stationed at Fort Hamilton from 1842-1847.]
Plaque says: This tree was planted by General Robert E. Lee while stationed at Fort Hamilton from 1842-1847. The tree has been restored and this tablet placed upon it by the New York Chapter United Daughters of the Confederacy, April, 1912. The plaque above says: This tree replaced the old one on this dite New York Division, U.D.C., 1935. At southeast corner of Fort Hamilton Parkway and 99th St., in lawn of St. Johns Episcopal Church - Church of the Generals.
Center for Brooklyn HistoryRobert E. Lee plaque, July 13, 1958.
Brooklyn does not seem the likeliest place for a Confederate plaque, but yet they did exist. According to a neighborhood legend, Robert E. Lee, while stationed at Fort Hamilton in the 1840s, planted a Norway maple in the churchyard at St. John's Episcopal Church. The parish (established in 1834) was given the nickname of "Church of the Generals" because its proximity to the fort meant many military men worshiped there. (Stonewall Jackson was supposedly baptized there.)
The current church building dates to 1890s. In 1912 the rotting condition of the tree was mentioned by the rector to a group that he was speaking in front of; that group was the Daughters of the Confederacy. The group, made aware of the connection to Lee, petitioned the Parks Department to save the tree. Once it was stabilized the Daughter's installed a plague honoring Lee. In 1935 the original tree, by then dead or fallen, was replaced with a new tree and new plaque.
In 2017 following the protests and violence surrounding the removal of Confederate statues in Virginia, the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island (which had closed the church in in 2015) removed the plaques.
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