The Pine Riot

“Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand: they all look to their own way, every one for gain, from his quarter.” Isaiah 56:11

By Riley J. Hood—Milwaukee County Constitution Party

In 1722 the New Hampshire General Court passed a law reserving white pine trees greater than 12 inches in diameter for His Majesty’s Royal Navy. The “King’s Trees” were specially marked by a Deputy Surveyor. The other trees could only be harvested under license from the crown, and that privilege was expensive. Needless to say, people were having trouble building new homes.

The law wasn’t strictly enforced until 1766, when New Hampshire’s appointed Royal Governor, John Wentworth started carrying out inspections. Deputy Surveyor John Sherburn was also sent to inspect saw mills for using the “King’s Trees.” Sherburn found six mills in Goffstown and Weare, and called them out in the February 7th, 1772 New Hampshire Gazette, issuing formal charges. The mill owners hired attorney Samuel Blodgett to represent them and persuade Governor Wentworth to dismiss the charges. Blodgett was like some lawyers, unprincipled, when Wentworth refused to drop the charges, he made Blodgett a surveyor, and seeing what side of the toast was buttered, Blodgett accepted.

The offenders were found guilty and fined, the Goffstown mills paid out, but the Weare Mills refused. An arrest warrant was issued and on April 13th, 1772; Hillsborough County Sheriff Benjamin Whitting and Deputy John Quigley set out for Weare to arrest the mill owner Ebenezer Mudgett. Mudgett was arrested and promised bail. Whitting and Quigley spent the night at a local inn, the town-folk gathered at Mudgett’s home. The next morning more than twenty men, with their faces blackened and switches in hand, rushed into Whiting’s room led by Mudgett. Whiting seized his pistols and would have shot some of them, but they caught him, held him by his arms and legs up from the floor, his face down, two men on each side beat him with rods beat him. “They crossed out the account against them of all logs cut, drawn and forfeited, on his bare back.” Whiting said: “They almost killed me.” The town-folk beat Quigley, and injured the men’s horses.

Sheriff Whiting, Colonel Moore from Bedford and Edward Goldstone Lutwyche from Merrimack and organized a posse to return and arrest the rioters, who had fled. They were eventually able to arrest one of the men involved in the assault, and the others were named and ordered to post bail and appear in court. Eight men were charged with rioting, disturbing the peace and with assaulting Benjamin Whiting. Four judges, Theodore Atkinson, Meshech Weare, Leverett Hubbard and William Parker, heard the case in the Amherst Superior Court in September 1772. The rioters pled guilty, the judges fined them 20 shillings each and ordered them to pay the cost of the court hearing.

On December 13, 1774, Paul Revere embarked on a 55-mile ride from Boston to Portsmouth to warn of Fort William and Mary’s imminent seizure from British troops. 400 men responded by raiding the garrison’s gunpowder to prevent the takeover, lowering the fort’s British flag upon their return to Portsmouth.

New Hampshire, one of the original 13 colonies, was the first state to have its own State Constitution. Its spirit of independence is epitomized in the state motto, “Live Free or Die.” New Hampshire was the 9th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution–on June 21, 1788. It plays an important role in national elections, as it is the first state to hold national primaries, and its primary results are thought to influence those in the rest of the nation, giving rise to the saying “As New Hampshire goes, so goes the nation.” New Hampshire is one of only nine states that does not require its residents to pay state income tax.

At the Milwaukee County Constitution Party, we call attention to the Declaration of Independence, “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.” AOC’s 70% tax rate, VAT taxes and Carbon Taxes are not compatible with American Liberty. The Democrats create new levels oppression, and the GOP reneges on their promise to cut them. Before you try holding off every cop in the world from taking your house, and they will shoot you out of it, we recommend taking team action, and getting decent people on local boards and elected to local office. It can be done. If the French and Australians are getting fed up with socialism, America should learn a lesson and get rid of it here. In Wisconsin, we have Tommy Thompson calling for a higher gas tax, an even worse “Rotten-Core” Luther Olson joining with the Democrats calling for automatic property tax increases, these socialists should be treated as the un-American interlopers that they are.