HAMPSHIREMEN:

Britain's Royal Navy had a problem -- England lacked trees large enough to become masts for its ships, so, in the early 1720s, the Crown claimed all of the tall white pines in northern New England, marking them with the King's Broad Arrow (three slashes in the shape of an arrow). Eventually, the law expanded to forbidding settlers from cutting down trees more than one foot in diameter. For decades, the edict was mostly ignored. In 1766, Gov. John Wentworth decided it was time to crack down, and sent his deputy surveyor John Sherburn to search sawmills in New Hampshire. He found six offending mills in Goffstown and Weare. The Goffstown mill owners paid a fine. The Weare owners refused.

Ebenezer Mudgett, the leader of the Weare mill owners, was arrested by Sheriff Benjamin Whiting and Deputy John Quigley on April 13, 1772. Mudgett said he'd pay up in the morning, and they let him go. Then Mudgett spent the night with the townspeople planning what would be known as the Pine Tree Riot.

At dawn, Mudgett burst into Whiting's room at the Pine Tree Tavern, saying he'd brought the money, and by money, he meant 20 other men who beat Whiting. Quigley suffered the same fate, and both men were run out of town.

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