The property's history began in 1681, when William Penn signed a "lease and release" agreement with Thomas Minshall, an English Quaker, for property in Pennsylvania that contained the site now occupied by the arboretum. Between 1681 and 1944, the property was home to eight generations of the same family. The arboretum itself started in 1825 when two brothers, Jacob and Minshall Painter, set aside land to systematically plant more than 1,000 varieties of trees and shrubs. In 1944, descendant Laura Tyler bequeathed the property, in memorial to her husband John J. Tyler, to be a nonprofit arboretum.[3][4]
Today, Tyler Arboretum attracts 70,000 visitors a year to its 650-acre campus and boasts 17 miles of pathways and hiking trails. The horticultural collections include the following major features:
The original Painter Trees: 1. Lebanon Cedar (Cedrus libani), a Pennsylvania state champion; 2. Ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba); 3. Yulan Magnolia (Magnolia denudata), a Pennsylvania state champion; 4. Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum); 5. Red Maple (Acer rubrum) 6. Osage-orange (Maclura pomifera), blown down by a hurricane in 1954, just the rot-resistant trunk remains; 7. Cucumbertree Magnolia (Magnolia acuminata); 8. Baldcypress (Taxodium distichum); 9. Leatherleaf Mahonia (Mahonia bealei); 10. Tuliptree (Liriodendron tulipifera); 11. Yellow Buckeye (Aesculus flava); 12. River Birches - 2 (Betula nigra); 13. Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum), the largest giant sequoia in Pennsylvania and possibly in the eastern United States; 14. White Oaks -2 (Quercus alba); 15. Swamp White Oak (Quercus bicolor); 16. Sweetgums - 2 (Liquidambar styraciflua); 17. Corsican Pine (Pinus nigra spp. laricio); 18. Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum); 19. American Linden (Tilia americana); 20. Common Pear (Pyrus communis); and 21. Oriental Spruce (Picea orientalis), a Pennsylvania state champion.
