Note 149 — A CATALOGUE of REVOLUTIONARY ARTICLES in THE POUGHKEEPSIE MUSEUM.

Footnote 149: There was a famous tree in Boston, under which the patriots had often held meetings since the time of the stamp-act excitement. On that account it was called "Liberty-Tree." It was a noble elm, and stood at the corner of the present Washington and Essex streets. On the 31st of August, 1775, the British cut it down, with no apparent motive but the indulgence of petty spite. An eye-witness of the event says: "After a long spell of laughing and grinning, sweating, swearing, and foaming, with malice diabolical, they cut down a tree, because it bore the name of liberty." A tory soldier was killed by its fall. A poet of the day wrote:—