The Sons of Liberty in Maryland once gathered under the shade of a large tulip poplar in Annapolis.

Though that tree was damaged in a storm at the turn of the millennium, its historic legacy lives on in a very literal sense.

More than 100 people gathered at the William Paca House and Garden on Wednesday to plant a Liberty Tree sapling to celebrate Maryland Day, which marks the date in 1634 when settlers from two sailing ships landed on Maryland soil. The event kicked off a yearlong project to plant one in every Maryland county and in Baltimore City.

The ceremonial planting was accompanied by a fife and drum performance by the Sons of the American Revolution Color Guard and an impassioned reading of “Liberty Tree,” a ballad written by Thomas Paine in 1775.

Planting a Liberty Tree in Annapolis serves as a reminder, Mayor Jared Littmann said, that the work of democracy requires effort and doesn’t happen “in isolation or by accident.”

“It happens when people show up, speak out, listen, stand together. It happens when we call out fascism, racism, antisemitism, limits on the free press and attacks on secure elections,” the first-year Democrat said. “And that is what we are doing here today.”

Maryland’s Liberty Tree

The Liberty Tree in Maryland was the longest-standing in the nation. It towered for 200 years after the American Revolution, outlasting trees that were felled by disease — or the British.

Then, in 1999, Hurricane Floyd roared up the East Coast with battering winds, damaging the towering witness to history. Experts said it was at risk of “a massive structural failure” and had to be cut down, according to The Washington Post.

Crews soon after used chainsaws to cut away at the old tree, where colonists once gathered to discuss how Annapolis would respond to British taxes, according to The Post.

The sapling planted Wednesday, and those that will be planted around the state, are genetic clones of the tree that came down nearly 30 years ago. The seeds that these saplings grew from came from a scion of the original, planted in 1889.

A scion is a detached part of one tree that is grafted onto another in order to propagate the original. So, even though the Liberty Tree on the St. John’s campus is not the exact one that some of America’s founders gathered under, it is genetically identical.

“That scion growing on campus today is, biologically speaking, the Liberty Tree continued,” said Katie Caljean, president of the Maryland Center for History and Culture.

The tree planted Wednesday will grow on the grounds of the historic William Paca House, which is managed and preserved by Historic Annapolis. Paca was a founder of the Anne Arundel County chapter of the Sons of Liberty and a signatory to the Declaration of Independence.

The offspring from that scion have been incredibly successful, said Francis “Champ” Zumbrun, a forester in Western Maryland who tends to the saplings.

Zumbrun has planted saplings all over, including at Monticello and Mount Vernon in Virginia. He also runs a program that sells them — at the low cost of $40 a pop — all over.

“It’s very important to remember our beginnings,” Zumbrun said in an interview. “The Liberty Tree is a living symbol, it’s a direct descendant where revolutionaries gathered.”

The tulip poplar is actually in the Magnolia family of trees, and can grow to about 100 feet tall, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Zumbrun called it a beautiful and hardy species.

The original Liberty Tree and its genetic clone both called the campus of St. John’s College in Annapolis home. Joe Macfarland, dean of the Annapolis school, said in an interview that although the tree looms large in historical memory and imagination, documentation regarding historic events at the Liberty Tree is actually “pretty slight.”

“It’s a focal point for the imagination to think about the history of this place,” he said.

The Liberty Tree Project

Some future tree locations were better identified as of late March — the tree in Montgomery County will be planted at Gray Courthouse, for example, while Harford County’s is only planned as “Havre de Grace.”

The project is a partnership of Preservation Maryland, the Maryland Center for History and Culture and other groups, including the Maryland 250 Commission. Michele Johnson, the commission’s director, said in an interview that she feels great optimism about the state of Maryland.

The 250th anniversary celebrations of the signing of the Declaration of Independence are a “national commemoration with state and local execution,” she said.

The Liberty Tree project, she said, is perfect for Maryland because of its initiative to plant millions of trees around the state.

“That in itself is a great match. And it connects with our history,” she said.

After the speeches, and after officials stood with golden shovels at the pit where the Liberty Tree was to be planted, two staff members got on their hands and knees, sticking their hands in the dirt.

Together, the groundskeeper from Historic Annapolis and the forester from the Maryland Forest Service spread soil over and around the surprisingly small root ball of the tulip poplar.

The sapling, no more than 20 inches tall, was quickly and quietly planted and surrounded by dark mulch.