Note 137 — Chapter V · Second Week at Great Salt Lake City.—Visit to the Prophet.

The first liberty-pole was erected on the open space between the Court-house and Broadway, New York. It is a long flag-staff, often of several pieces, like the “mast of some tall ammiral,” surmounted by a liberty-cap, that Phrygian or Mithridatic coiffure with which the Goddess of Liberty is supposed to disfigure herself. With a peculiar inconsequence, “the whole is” said to be “an allusion to Gesler’s cap which Tell refused to do homage to, leading to the freedom of Switzerland.”—Bartlett. The French soon made of their peuplier a peuple lié. The Americans, curious to say, still believe in it.