When Alfred Gaswell was buried in a Boothbay cemetery over 130 years ago, the oak tree just behind his grave was likely just a sapling. Through the years the oak grew tall and strong, adding rings each year. With each new ring, it crept closer and closer to the gravesite of Alfred Gaswell.

Soon, Mr. Gaswell couldn't escape the growing oak. The oak grew around the gravestone. The power of the tree's trunk eventually grabbed and cracked the grave marker.

There it sits, snapped in half, not by vandals but by nature itself.

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