<P> During the Liberty Riot of 1768, to protest the seizure of John Hancock's ship by the Royal Navy, townspeople dragged a customs commissioner's boat out of the harbor all the way to the Liberty Tree, where it was condemned at a mock trial and burned on Boston Common . Two years later, a funeral procession for the victims of the Boston Massacre passed by the tree . It was also the site of protests against the Tea Act . In 1774, a customs official and staunch loyalist named John Malcolm was stripped to the waist, tarred and feathered, and forced to announce his resignation under the tree . The following year, Thomas Paine published an ode to the Liberty Tree in the Pennsylvania Gazette . </P> <P> In the years leading up to the war, the British made the Liberty Tree an object of ridicule . British soldiers tarred and feathered a man named Thomas Ditson, and forced him to march in front of the tree . During the Siege of Boston, a party of British soldiers and Loyalists led by Job Williams cut the tree down, knowing what it represented to the patriots, and used it for firewood . </P> <P> Following the British evacuation in 1776, patriots returning to Boston erected a liberty pole at the site . For many years the tree stump was used as a reference point by local citizens, similar to the Boston Stone . During an 1825 tour of Boston, the Marquis de Lafayette declared, "The world should never forget the spot where once stood Liberty Tree, so famous in your annals ." </P> <P> At the 1964 New York World's Fair a sculpture of the tree designed by Albert Surman was a featured exhibit in the New England Pavilion . When the Liberty Tree Mall was opened in 1972, the sculpture was installed at center court . </P>

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