The 1772 Pine Tree Riot

Three years before the American Revolution, colonists in New Hampshire violently rebelled against the British Crown over who owned their pine trees. Angry settlers beat local officials and forced them to eat pine cones to protest royal timber laws.

The British government claimed all white pine trees for the Royal Navy to build ship masts, forbidding colonists from using them. When a local sheriff tried to fine a sawmill owner for using forbidden wood, a mob of protesters turned the tables on him. They cut the tails off his horses and marched him out of town as a warning. This obscure event proved that the spirit of rebellion was brewing long before the famous battles of 1775.