Adams Papers

Sunday. May 4th. 1766.
[from the Diary of John Adams]

Sunday. May 4th. 1766.

Returning from Meeting this Morning I saw for the first Time, a likely young Button Wood Tree, lately planted, on the Triangle made by the Three Roads, by the House of Mr. James Brackett.1 The Tree is well set, well guarded, and has on it, an Inscription “The Tree of Liberty,” and “cursed is he, who cutts this Tree.”—Q. What will be the Consequences of this Thought? I never heard an Hint of it, till I saw it, but I hear that some Persons grumble and threaten to girdle it.

1James Brackett kept a “large and commodious” tavern on what is now the corner of Hancock and Elm Streets, Quincy (Pattee, Old Braintree and Quincy description begins William S. Pattee, A History of Old Braintree and Quincy, with a Sketch of Randolph and Holbrook, Quincy, 1878. description ends , p. 168–169).

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