[3] In 1722, under the Broad Arrow Policy it became illegal to cut down white pine trees larger than 12 inches in diameter in New Hampshire in order to reserve them for use as Royal Navy masts.

The next day, Mudgett and twenty men attacked the Sheriff and Deputy at the Quimby Inn, beating them nearly to death with large rods and sending them out of town on horseback.

[4] By the late 17th century, the construction and maintenance of the huge number of ships required to build and defend the British Empire left few trees in Britain suitable for use as large spars.

To maintain Britain's naval and trading advantage, laws were passed in North America to protect selected white pines for British shipbuilding.

One such example, the Mast Tree Riot, occurred 1734 in what is now Fremont, New Hampshire, when a surveyor-general visited the town to inspect felled lumber and was forced to leave by local citizens who disguised themselves as native Americans.

His men found that six mills in Goffstown and Weare possessed large white pines and marked them with the broad arrow to indicate that they were Crown property.

When the governor offered Blodgett the job of Surveyor of the King's Woods, he accepted, and, rather than getting the charges dropped, he instructed his clients to pay a settlement.

The rioters then cut off the ears and shaved the manes and tails of the horses, after which Whiting and Quigley were forced to ride out of town through a gauntlet of jeering townspeople, shouted at and slapped down the road towards Goffstown.

[3][7][8][10] Whiting engaged Colonel Moore of Bedford and Edward Goldstone Lutwyche of Merrimack, who assembled a posse of soldiers to arrest the perpetrators.

Eight men were ordered to post bail and appear in court to answer charges of rioting, disturbing the peace, and "making an assault upon the body of Benjamin Whiting."

Four judges, Theodore Atkinson, Meshech Weare, Leverett Hubbard, and William Parker, heard the case in the Superior Court in Amherst in September 1772.

As Sheets records, the Pine Tree Flag used during the riots has increased in popularity recently, making "...its way into countless homes, prayer rooms, and even government buildings.