Benjamin Fairbanks was an 18th-century farmer and selectmen from Dedham, Massachusetts who received the lightest sentence of anyone ever convicted under the Sedition Act of 1798.
[1][2] Fairbanks was charged with having a role in erecting the liberty pole in Dedham, along with David Brown.
Fairbanks, a prosperous farmer and former Selectman but also an "impressionable, rather excitable man," was quickly arrested[4] on November 6, 1798.
[2] He was brought to Boston by the United States Marshal for the district, and accompanied by men from a neighboring community.
[6] He posted bond and was scheduled for trial the following June at the Federal Circuit Court in Boston.