The Loyal Nine eventually became part of a larger group , the Sons of Liberty . They continued to use the Liberty Tree as a gathering place for protests , leading loyalist Peter Oliver to write bitterly in 1781 , This Tree stood in the Town , & was consecrated for an Idol for the Mob to Worship ; it was properly the '' Tree ordeal '' , where those , whom the Rioters pitched upon as State delinquents , were carried to for Trial , or brought to as the Test of political Orthodoxy . During the Liberty Riot of 1768 , to protest the seizure of John Hancock 's ship by the Royal Navy , townspeople dragged a customs commissioner 's boat out of the harbor all the way to the Liberty Tree , where it was condemned at a mock trial and burned on Boston Common . Two years later , a funeral procession for the victims of the Boston Massacre passed by the tree . It was also the site of protests against the Tea Act . In 1774 , a customs official and staunch loyalist named John Malcolm was stripped to the waist , tarred and feathered , and forced to announce his resignation under the tree . The following year , Thomas Paine published an ode to the Liberty Tree in the '' Pennsylvania Gazette ''
Boston Massacre
Boston Massacre
Liberty Tree