Pine Tree Riot

The Pine Tree Riot was one of the first acts of rebellion by the American colonists against Great Britain leading to the American Revolution.

By the late 17th century, Great Britain had few trees remaining which were suitable to be used as masts for merchant and naval ships. White pine trees were considered to be the best type of tree to use for these single-stick masts. Each New Hampshire town's charter contained a passage which declared that the white pine trees which grew within its borders were property of the King of Great Britain, no matter who owned the land. To get around the law, colonists would saw the logs into wide pine floorboards for their homes, which became a sign of patriotism. The law was not strictly enforced until John Wentworth was appointed governor of the New Hampshire colony in 1766. He instructed his Surveyor General to carry out the law more firmly . In 1772, the British Parliament passed a law which protected "any white pine tree of the growth of 12 inches of diameter." For the land owners, this meant that they were not allowed to cut any trees until the Deputy Surveyor came to mark all the trees that would be protected with a broad arrow to indicate they were to be saved for masts of ships. The result of the law caused a patriotic backlash of sentiment, making it unfashionable to have floorboards less than 12 inches wide.

During the winter of 1771-72, Deputy Surveyor John Sherburn found that six mills in Goffstown and Weare possessed large white pines and marked them with the broad arrow to indicate that they were the property of the King. The owners of the mills were fined and told to appear before the Court of Vice Admiralty in Portsmouth on February 7, 1772. The mill owners hired a lawyer by the name of Samuel Blodgett to represent them and he met with Governor Wentworth in hopes that he would persuade the governor to drop the charges against the mill owners. Instead, the Governor offered Blodgett the job of Surveyor of the King's Woods, which he accepted. Upon returning from his mission, Blodgett wrote to the sawmill owners and instructed them to pay a settlement. The mill owners from Goffstown paid their fines at once and had their logs returned to them. Those from Weare refused to pay.

On April 13, 1772, County Sheriff Benjamin Whiting and his Deputy John Quigly were sent to South Weare with a warrant to arrest the leader of the Weare mill owners, Ebenezer Mudgett. The two arrived in Weare late in the day, they decided to spend the night at Aaron Quimby's inn, the Pine Tree Tavern, and arrest Mudgett the next day. Many of the townsmen gathered at Mudgett's house to decide what course of action should be taken.

At dawn the next day, 20 men led by Mudgett with faces blackened with soot entered Whiting's room and assaulted him and his deputy with tree switches. They gave him one lash for every tree for which they were being fined. They cut off the ears and shaved the manes and tails of Whiting and Quigley's horses to render them valueless. In a further effort to disgrace the men, the people of Weare forced Whiting and Quigly to ride out of town through a gauntlet of jeering townspeople.

Near the end of spring, Whiting returned with a large group to arrest the rioters. They arrested one of the men involved in the assault and then the rest voluntarily came forward. They were charged with being rioters and disturbers of the peace and with "making an assault upon the body of Benjamin Whiting...so that his life was despaired of." Four judges, Theodore Atkinson, Meshech Weare, Leverett Hubbard and William Parker, heard the case in the Superior Court in Amherst. The rioters pled guilty and the judges were lenient, fining them 20 shillings each and ordering them to pay the cost of the court hearing. It is generally thought that the judges were sympathetic to the mill owners.

External links

* [http://www.nhptv.org/kn/nh/nhlp5a.htm New Hampshire History Curriculum]
* [http://www.usgennet.org/usa/nh/county/hillsborough/goffstown/book/chap14.html An account of the survey of logs by Deputy Surveyor John Sherburn in the "History of Goffstown"]