AUGUST 14 1776 – An effigy of Andrew Oliver ...is hanged on the Liberty Tree. The Liberty Tree was a large elm tree that stood in Boston on the corner of Essex and Orange, now Washington streets. It was the site of many protests, assemblies, several funerals, and symbolized American patriotism. From 1764 to 1776 the British imposed the Stamp Act on the colonies, which was met with colonial outrage over the issue of taxation without representation which was a driving force leading up to the American Revolution.
Andrew Oliver was the local stamp distributor, a man hated in the colonies for enforcing the tax on all legal documents as a result of the Stamp Act, including, newspapers, legal documents, playing cards, etc. It was here at this Liberty Tree that colonists assembled the Loyal Nine, which would later become the Sons of Liberty in Boston. On august 141, 1776, a doll was made to Oliver’s liking, complete with a devil on it to represent the man behind the Stamp Act, Lord Bute, and hanged the doll on the Liberty Tree.
Later on, the Act was repealed, and replaced by the Declamatory Act which taxed molasses, and Oliver used the tree’s location to resign as stamp enforcer. The tree had many uses during these times. Samuel Adams arranged funeral processions resulting from the Boston Massacre to take a detour around the street as it went from Fanuell Hall to Granary Burial Grounds as thousands of Patriots followed. As the Revolution went under way, the British ridiculed the tree and Loyalist Job Williams cut it down in defiance of the Patriots, which heightened tempers even further. That’s fine, Liberty Trees sprung up all over the colonies after that. In fact there wasn’t a colony that didn’t have its own Liberty Tree.
1935 – Roosevelt signs Social Security Act. ...This was part of FDR’s New Deal program, along with the Works Progress Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps, which were designed to help the flailing American economy during the great depression by bringing unemployment levels down. According to their website, Social Security delivers a broad range of services online at socialsecurity.gov and through a nationwide network of over 1,400 offices that include regional offices, field offices, card centers, tele service centers, processing centers, hearing offices, the Appeals Council, and our State and territorial partners, the Disability Determination Services. We also have a presence in U.S. embassies around the globe. For the public, we are the face of the government. The rich diversity of our employees mirrors the public we serve, and we have a proud history of protecting the integrity of our programs and service to the public.
1831 – Happy birthday Vigilante X. ...John X Biedler from Pennsylvania, led a group of vigilantes hunt down crime, led by the lawless Plummer gang in Montana in the 1860s. He helped to bring law back into order and personally hanged five of Plummers gang members. Biedler simply went by the name X. There’s lot more to that story if you check out the John Axline book “speaking ill of the dead”.
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