Liberty Trees: Arbor Day 2007

A new Liberty Tree, propagated from the last original Liberty Tree, a grand tulip poplar that lived more than 400 years in Maryland, was planted on April 27, 2007 at the Roger Williams National Memorial on North Main Street in Providence, RI. It's just down the road from the site of Rhode Island's original Liberty Tree, an elm chosen by the Sons of Liberty in 1768 that stood on the north side of Olney Street and North Main. The RI Department of Environmental Management posted a press release with details of today's ceremony, including the list of nine winners of $30,000 in America the Beautiful grants. An excerpt:

"The Roger Williams National Memorial, a unit of the National Park Service, was selected as the site to receive this historic Liberty Tree due to Roger Williams' nationally significant story of liberty of conscience and its connection to the founding of the principles of freedom in the United States. The memorial's close proximity to the location of the original Rhode Island Liberty Tree, and the protection its landscape provides, will allow the tree to flourish in scale and stature."

I'm adding a national organization, American Forests, to the Providential Gardener's lists of organizations today in honor of Arbor Day. And I'll add a photo, but at the moment it's pouring rain outside.

Part of the last liberty tree lives on in other ways as well. A 2002 article, "The Sweet Sound of Liberty," in American Forests magazine tells the story of how Taylor guitars are made from Maryland's liberty tree.