It stood as the lumbermen cut through the virgin forest and saw them send logs floating down the Allegheny River.
It stood as the first fount of "black gold" spewed forth from the bowels of the earth and watched the drills first rise and then rust.
It stood as a village rose up around it to become a city and saw the dirt roads turn to pavement and the wagons fade as the automobile took their place.
The men who came to fell the venerable giant on Thursday estimated it stood for between 175 and 200 years.
When the time came, the wide-stretched boughs fell, the great girth of its trunk was sheared and finally, the great tree fell.
It's time had come.
The oak tree on the west side of the Peterson-Blick Funeral Home in Warren came down on Thursday.
"I hate to see it go," Peterson-Blick Funeral Home Supervisor Todd Andersen said. "I just hope people understand why it had to come down."
It didn't go quietly though.
It took three men, a woodchipper and a crane just to shear the tree's sweeping canopy.
Workers from Hazlett Tree Service performed the task. One man swung high above the ground trimming boughs with the girth of a man's torso. The crane operator dodged surrounding wires as he gently lowered limbs heavy enough to crush the man awaiting them below. Once on the ground, branches were cut to size and fed into a woodchipper leaving only saw dust to mark their passage.
The tree had to go, according to Andersen.
"It's ruining the roof. If there were ever a windstorm and that thing blew over I would be out of business," Andersen said. "It's a historic tree, but it's also right beside a historic building."
According to Andersen, local lore claims the tree sprouted from an acorn taken from the White House lawn. The estimated age would make that the White House occupied by the fourth President of the United States, James Madison or one of his immediate successors, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams or Andrew Jackson to put things in perspective.
The building dates nearly as far back. It started life as a home, but later became a bed and breakfast before Freeman Peterson bought it and converted it into a funeral home in 1919.
When the saws finally breached its twelve-foot, eight-inch trunk, the silent observer who had seen the 1832 birth and development of the city finally went to rest.