Northampton Oak in D.C., estimated to be more than 400 years old, topples on wires, cars and a house

The “Northampton Oak” on the street of the same name in Northwest D.C. fell on Monday, hitting cars, wires and a house. The tree was estimated to be more than 400 years old.

A neighborhood resident said he heard the tree go down.

“I heard a loud crack, a huge thunder, I knew right away what it was. This tree came down so rapidly, if anybody had been out here, underneath it, or a car had come by, it could’ve been a terrible thing. Thank goodness, no one was hurt,” Gary Thompson, a 31-year neighborhood resident, told WUSA-TV.

The tree fell onto a house, left other homes without power after pulling down electrical lines, and also hit cars.

Another resident, identifying themselves only as “M” told the PoPVille blog that “some even felt their houses shake as the tree completely uprooted and collapsed onto the street … Four cars were destroyed and some nearby homes sustained some damage.”

Mr. Thompson told WUSA-TV that city personnel had previously come to the neighborhood to maintain the tree. Arborists also had warned that the Northampton Oak could have suffered internal rot and that it was near the end of its lifespan, Mr. Thompson said.

The Northampton Oak had previously been crowned the biggest in D.C. in 2006, but came up short in 2023 when nonprofit Casey Trees did another survey of the city’s trees. The nonprofit did say, however, that the aged tree was one of the largest on private property in the city.

“It takes 150 to 200 years for an oak to get to heritage size, so think about all the people who would have had a say in the use of that property over 200 years. The fact that every single one of them valued that tree enough to not mess with it is really special,” Casey Trees Field Manager Nick Smalley told the Washingtonian last August.

The Northampton Oak toppling comes just days after a branch from a historic 100-year-old oak tree fell on Sarah Noah in Garfield Park, killing her.