Residents awoke one October morning in 1798 to find a large wooden pole had been erected on the Hartford Road in Clapboard Trees parish.
[1][2] At the top was a Phrygian cap and a hand painted sign declaring[3] No Stamp act; no sedition; no alien bill; no land tax.
[3] The pole was chopped down by a group from the second precinct and the culprits were sought before Samuel Bradford, a US Marshall, got to Dedham,[2][11] but they saved the "libelous label" as evidence.
[7] Other Federalist press said the pole was "a rallying point for the enemies of a Free Government" and an emblem of "insurrection and civil war.
"[3] Fairbanks, a prosperous farmer and former Selectman but also an "impressionable, rather excitable man," was quickly arrested and charged with violating the Sedition Act of 1798.
[9][2] Nathaniel Ames described his arrest as a "pompous array of tyrant power, seized on suspicion and carried out of his own County to answer charges solely within the jurisdiction of his own State laws and in courts of his own County - and held to the excessive bail of 4,000 dollars to answer a tyrannic usurpation on our own Sovereign State!
"[17][4] Several Dedham residents, including Chapin, Joseph Kingsbury, Jeremiah Baker, and Luther Ellis, testified against Brown, who was not represented by a lawyer.
[18] Nathaniel Ames received what he called "two illegal summons to the High Fed Circ't Court," but refused to appear and testify.
[19] As he did not have the money, and had no way of earning it while in prison, Brown petitioned President John Adams for a pardon in July 1800, and then again in February 1801.