Dedham Liberty Pole
liberty pole erected in 1798 in Dedham, Massachusetts
The Dedham Liberty Pole was a liberty pole erected in 1798 in Dedham, Massachusetts in protest of the Federalist administration. Several of those involved with the pole were arrested, resulting in both the harshest, and the lightest, sentences ever imposed under the Sedition Act of 1798.
Erection
Residents awoke one October morning in 1798 to find a large wooden pole had been erected on the Hartford Road in Clapboard Trees parish. At the top was a Phrygian cap and a hand painted sign declaring
No Stamp act; no sedition; no alien bill; no land tax.
Downfall to the tyrants of America; peace and
retirement to the President; long live the vice
President and the minority; May moral government
be the basis of civil government.
This liberty pole was erected by David Brown, an itinerant veteran of the American Revolution who traveled from town to town in Massachusetts, drumming up subscribers for a series of political pamphlets he had written. The minister in the third parish had been preaching Democratic-Republican principals to his congregation for some time.
Brown was assisted by Benjamin Fairbanks and about 40 others, including Amariah Chapin, who painted the sign. Brown held the ladder while another, presumably Fairbanks, put up the sign. Nathaniel Ames was also very likely involved.
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This entry incorporates text from “Dedham Liberty Pole” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.