The Liberty Tree
Did you know that the Liberty Tree that stands in the far corner of the Museum’s garden has a very special history?
On June 20, 1775, several dozen Cumberland County men gathered in a tavern on Person Street and signed a resolution protesting the British aggression at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, two months earlier. The resolution, known as the Liberty Point Resolves, affirmed that the people of this small colonial town were “ready to sacrifice our lives and fortunes” for America if the conflict with Great Britain couldn’t be reconciled.
After their declaration, it is said that the signed resolution was tacked to the Liberty Tree. This occurred thirteen months prior to the Declaration of Independence.
Local Connection
The tree also shares a connection with The Fayetteville Observer, Fayetteville’s local newspaper, for more than 90 years.
A Northern newspaperman named William J. McMurray acquired the Observer in the winter of 1923. McMurray decided to move the newspaper’s operations from Green Street to the corner of Hay and Hillsboro streets, next to the tree.
He agreed in a deal with the city to keep the small plot and its oak tree “neat, attractive and (in) suitable condition.” The Observer’s owners would relocate the newspaper to Whitfield Street in the early 1970s. When the Army acquired the Hay Street block to build the museum in the late 1990s, the Observer retained ownership of the tree’s corner plot and stipulated that it must be protected.
The tree used to be part of a small park fronting Hay Street called Exchange Square, according to the late historian and Observer columnist Roy Parker Jr., who wrote about it in 1997. “It was frequented by railroad patrons as a convenient place to wait for the trains that came practically every hour just across the tracks at the depot,” he wrote.
The square shows up on an 1825 map of Fayetteville and is mentioned in an 1818 deed between David Hay and the city, though it is not clear whether the square existed before then or was being carved from Hay’s land. The corner of Hay and Hillsboro streets was a five-point intersection by 1825, long before the north-south railroad tracks that now run parallel with Hillsboro. Maiden Lane, where the Headquarters Library is today, extended down to this spot.
The 1825 map shows some buildings, but no trees. Was the Liberty Tree there, growing on the corner of this long-forgotten square?
Quite likely, says Charles Allen, owner of Green Biz Nursery & Landscaping.
In 2016, when the Observer’s owners were preparing to sell the newspaper to GateHouse Media, they conducted appraisals of the company’s assets. This included the plot where the tree stands. (The plot was conveyed to the ASOM museum that year.)
The appraiser asked Allen to examine the tree and try to estimate its age.
The tree is a Virginia live oak, he says, which is native to this area and is squatter than the Florida live oak that is more commonly sold today. He didn’t do a core sample, which would determine a more precise age. Instead, he relied on his 40 years of experience in growing live oaks to estimate how long the Liberty Tree has been growing.
“It’s close to 200 years, maybe a little more,” Allen said.
Could it be, perhaps, 250 years old, which would have made it a young oak at the time of the Liberty Point Resolves?
“It is possible,” Allen said. He has heard the story, too.
“There is a good chance it was there. We don’t have any photographs. There aren’t any drawings. I’ve not seen any literature that refers to that particular tree at that location. I don’t know,” he said.
“But I think it is a wonderful lore. We should carry it on and preserve it. Let’s face it, it’s the oldest tree in downtown.”
Whether the story about tacking the Resolves to the tree is truth or fiction, the legend likely ensured its survival all these decades. The tree is the only thing from the late 1700s or early 1800s in this part of downtown that remains, other than the streets.