The League of Women Voters of Needham won the Grand Marshall’s Award at the Needham Fourth of July Parade! 

In keeping with the parade theme “The Dawn of the American Revolution,” the League of Women Voters presents its float Boston’s Liberty Tree: Meeting Place for Resistance!

The Liberty Tree was a famous elm tree that stood in Boston, Massachusetts at the corner of Essex Street and Orange Street (now Washington Street), near Boston Common.

The tree became a gathering place for colonial protesters. A liberty pole was installed nearby with a flag that could be raised above the tree to summon the townspeople to a meeting.

On August 14, 1765, a crowd gathered under the tree to protest the Stamp Act, and when the Stamp Act was repealed in 1766, townspeople gathered at the Liberty Tree to celebrate. They decorated the tree with flags and streamers and hung lanterns. 

During the Siege of Boston, loyalist merchants cut down the tree in August 1775.

Today the site where the tree once stood—now Washington and Essex Streets—has a small plaza with a plaque saying: “Sons of Liberty, 1766; Independence of their Country, 1776.”

Learn more about the history of the Liberty Tree.

Watch our one-minute slide show here!