Great [Liberty] Trees and elms, etc.

[Joel S. Berson]

At 3/9/2010 12:09 PM, victor steinbok wrote:
>On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 10:02 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>
>...
>As for John Haskins, he is a noteworthy figure.
>...
>Yes, I know, this is all history. However, my goal is to look at the
>historical context of the naming of the Liberty Tree and, among other
>suggestions, it appears that Haskins is of the first /recorded/
>persons to have referred to the tree as The Tree of Liberty.

As I posted previously, a news item on Sept. 16, 1765 says "The Great
Tree ... was honour'd last Wednesday with the Name of THE TREE OF
LIBERTY".  That article does not mention Haskins. It is a month
earlier than the "John Haskins, Farmer" advertisement.  While
Haskins' name may be the first that can be found in Boston newspapers
"associated" with the tree, that hardly proves he was the first to
refer to it as "The Tree of Liberty", let alone proving he was the
person who gave it that name.

>...
> > This well-known image originated in Britain, not America, as an
> > engraving published in London in March, 1765 -- shortly after the
> > passage of the Stamp Act, but before the Liberty Tree.  Its
> > description at the following link corresponds with the Boston
> > newspaper article cited by Victor.  http://tinyurl.com/yfswf44   John
> > Singleton Copley based his 1765 etching, published (as the newspaper
> > says) on Nov. 1, on this.  See "Made in America: Printmaking,
> > 1760-1860," by Stefanie A. Munsing, pp.3-4, at http://tinyurl.com/ya64plw
>
>Am I reading this right? The image in the "caricatura" originated in
>London in March of 1765 and was well known in Boston /prior/ to events
>of the Liberty Tree--or contemporaneous with them.

Early enough for Copley to have adapted it for publication Nov. 1,
and the London print has a tree with a paper on it saying "To
Liberty" (similar to the Boston newspapers' description of the Boston
print).  It is certainly possible that the London print was seen in
Boston before the Sept. 16 use of the phrase "tree of liberty" in a
Boston newspaper.

>...
> > On March 6 (Saturday) I had reported many of the instances of "Sons
> > Of Liberty" that Victor later sent us again (see below).
>...
>By no means am I claiming primacy in any of this! I simply cataloged a
>list of citations, regardless of who found them and when. ...

My intent was to point out that Victor was sending the list for a
second time citations it had already seen.

Joel

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