The last surviving Liberty Tree, a majestic tulip poplar, stood on the grounds of St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland until September of 1999, when it sustained irreparable damage from Hurricane Floyd after four centuries of life. During the colonial period of the American Revolution, each of the original 13 colonies had adopted Liberty Trees (or, in some cases, Liberty Poles), where members of the public would congregate for speeches, protests and other assemblies during their struggle for independence from Great Britain.
In 1774, the Annapolis Liberty Tree prominently figured in the town’s variation on the Boston Tea Party. When a ship sailed into Annapolis harbor with a large cargo of tea, its owner hoped to unload it and quietly pay the reviled Tea Tax. Hearing this, an angry mob gathered under the tree, then marched to the owner’s house with an ultimatum: He could burn the ship and its cargo, or be hanged right there at his front door. The owner ran his ship aground and set it ablaze with his own torch.
In 1824, Marquis de Lafayette returned to America to be honored for his role in the American Revolution. During a ceremony in Annapolis, Lafayette stood in the shadow of the Liberty Tree and announced that in the aftermath of the successful revolution in his own country, more than 60,000 Liberty Trees had been planted in France.
Through much of the 19th Century, the Liberty Tree would be a favorite touchstone for statesmen, dignitaries and Presidents, and a popular site for Fourth of July picnics and other civic events. By the early 20th Century, the Liberty Tree was suffering from decay that had reduced its trunk to a hollow shell only 13 inches thick. In 1907, a landscape architect cleaned out the tree’s interior, then filled the cavity with 55 tons of concrete reinforced with steel and iron. Though the tree would outlive the average lifespan of a tulip poplar by almost a century, the severe damage inflicted by Hurricane Floyd would ultimately necessitate its removal for safety reasons.
On October 25, 1999, St. John’s hosted a special ceremony to honor the tree while it was still standing. Hundreds of spectators heard speeches by the Governor of Maryland and other dignitaries. After its removal, Bob Taylor heard about the tree through Emory Node, owner of Appalachian Bluegrass Shoppe in Baltimore. A lover of American history, Bob was fascinated by the Liberty Tree saga, but assumed that any salvaged wood from the tree would already be spoken for.
St. John’s saved parts of the tree for posterity; the trunk and large sections of branches were hauled away to three different destinations, including a landfill in Millersville, Maryland. When a local landscaper, Mark Mehnert, learned of the Liberty Tree’s fate, he decided to rescue the wood from the dump. He moved it to a climate-controlled section of a warehouse at his own expense. A few months later, out of the blue, Bob Taylor received an urgent voicemail from Mehnert, asking if he was interested in buying the wood. Mehnert explained that he needed an answer right away because he was going broke and needed a quick infusion of cash to pay off creditors. Bob immediately agreed, and the rest, as they say, is history.