The full story:

The Last Liberty Tree stood on the campus of St. John’s College in Annapolis until 1999 when it was so severely damaged by Hurricane Floyd that four arborists who were called for consultation declared it couldn’t be saved. It was “not just any tree,” mourned one writer who attended the solemn ceremony before the tree was cut down.

The ceremony was attended by hundreds who were treated to speeches by the governor of Maryland and other dignitaries. They heard a St. John’s professor sing the “Star Spangled Banner,” which was written by a former St. John’s student, Francis Scott Key, nearly 200 years before. A bell tolled 13 times for the 13 original colonies.

Bob Taylor of Taylor Guitars knew the significance of this tree along with the rest of the nation as it made national news when it was cut down, and through some various means he was able to purchase a major part of the trunk of the tree. Taylor felt he had enough wood to make 400 of the spectacular Liberty Tree acoustic guitars.

This tree witnessed the founding of our country, the beginning of the American revolution.

The nation’s first Liberty Tree was a stately elm, the largest of a group that stood in Boston on the corner of what is now Essex and Washington streets. The tree sheltered countless rallies, meetings and celebrations held by the Sons of Liberty. It was the tree where the colonists gathered to protest of the Stamp Act of 1765, decrying the British imposed “taxation without representation.” The rampage that ensued came to be known as the Stamp Act Riots when Bostonians trashed property, circulated petitions against the British and tarred and feathered anyone they thought loyal to the British throne.

The last act of violence by British soldiers prior to their evacuation of Boston was the chopping down of the Boston Liberty Tree. Each colony grew to have its own Liberty Tree or Pole, sites of many rallies by American revolutionaries. Most were destroyed by the British and the others were killed by disease or storms, but the Maryland Liberty Tree somehow survived, not only storms, but a gunpowder explosion inside its trunk, attempts to burn it down, and lightning strikes. It was estimated to be about 400 years old at its death in 1999.

Colonists in Annapolis met under the Liberty Tree to foment their own version of the Boston Tea Party. Upon learning that Andrew Stewart, owner of the ship Peggy Stewart, had sailed into Annapolis harbor with the ship full of more than 2,300 pounds of tea, the angry mob marched from the Liberty Tree to his house, giving him an ultimatum: burn the ship and the tea or be hanged. Stewart set the ship on fire by his own hand.

Only the sparkle of the abalone shell trim around the sinuous outline of the Liberty Tree Guitar recalls that fiery episode.