When the news reached New York, the bells were set ringing, and the excited multitude, surging hither and thither, at length gathered around the Bowling Green, and, seizing the leaden equestrian statue of George III. which stood there, broke it into fragments: this was afterwards run into bullets and hurled against his majesty’s troops.[35] When the Declaration arrived in Boston, the people gathered around old Faneuil Hall to hear it read, and, as the last sentence fell from the lips of the reader, a loud shout went up, and soon from every fortified height and every battery the thunder of cannon re-echoed the cry.
During the Stamp Act excitement there arose a practice of signifying public sentiment in a very effectual way,—though without any responsible agent, unless the inanimate Liberty-Tree may be so considered. This tree was a majestic elm that stood in front of a house opposite the Boylston market, on the edge of the “High Street,” in the town of Boston. On the 14th of August, 1765, an effigy representing Andrew Oliver, a gentleman appointed to distribute the stamps, was found hanging upon this tree, with a paper before it, on which was written, in large characters,—
“Fair Freedom’s glorious cause I’ve meanly quitted, For the sake of pelf; But, ah, the devil has me outwitted, And, instead of stamping others, I’ve hang’d myself.
“P.S.—Whoever takes this down is an enemy to his country.” On the right arm was written “A. O.,” and on the left,
“What greater pleasure can there be Than to see a stamp man hanging on a tree?”
On another part of the tree a boot was suspended,—the emblem of the Earl of Bute, First Lord of the Treasury,—from which the devil, with the Stamp Act in his hand, was looking out. Chief Justice—afterwards Governor—Hutchinson, directed the sheriff to remove this exhibition; but his deputies, from a fear of the popular feeling, declined. In the evening the figures were taken down by the people and carried in procession through the streets. After demolishing the stamp-office, in State Street, they proceeded to Fort Hill, where a bonfire was made of the pageantry in sight of Mr. Oliver’s house. It being intimated to Mr. Oliver that it would conduce to the quiet of the public if he would go to the tree and openly resign his commission, he appeared the next day, and declared, in the presence of a large concourse of people, that he would not continue in office. It was thenceforward called the Liberty-Tree, and the following inscription placed upon it:—“This tree was planted in the year 1614, and pruned by the order of the Sons of Liberty, February 14, 1766.” On future occasions there was seldom any excitement on political subjects without some evidence of it appearing on this tree. Whenever obnoxious offices were to be resigned or agreements for patriotic purposes entered into, the parties were notified to appear at the tree, “where they always found pens and paper, and a numerous crowd of witnesses, though the genius of the tree was invisible. When the British army took possession of Boston, in 1774, Liberty-Tree fell a victim to their vengeance, or to that of the persons to whom its shade had been disagreeable.” Liberty-trees were consecrated in Charlestown, Lexington, and Roxbury, Mass., and also in Charleston, S.C., Newport and Providence, R.I.—_Tudor’s Life of Otis_.