By Jennifer A. Richards, Research Team
November 1, 2022
Framingham’s first Liberty Pole, a wooden flagstaff, was raised on the Centre Common circa 1864. Liberty poles date back to the Romans and symbolize the Roman peoples’ freedom from Julius Caesar’s rule. These poles were revived several times throughout history, including during the American Revolution to call the Sons of Liberty together. The Liberty Pole was likely erected to commemorate the unification of North and South Framingham thanks to a renamed road, Union Avenue. Around the end of the Civil War, South Street (a road that connected South Framingham to the northern village) was renamed because the word ‘union’ was a popular sentiment at the time and the road did so much to unify the two villages.
Framingham’s wooden liberty pole only lasted 58 years before it was struck by lightning late one spring afternoon on June 9, 1922. Today, few photographs of the original Liberty Pole exist. None are as detailed as we hoped, but a glance of Framingham’s original flagstaff is shown below. (The silhouette of an eagle, wings spread in flight, can be seen against the backdrop of a winter sky.)
In 1922, a new flagpole was raised on the Common, although not on the original site as expected. The replacement was moved closer to the Town Hall (now known as the Village Hall on the Common). Townspeople heatedly disputed the revised location of the new flagpole. An accounting of the disagreements can be traced through Boston newspaper articles. The main opposition was that the new location interfered with the existing baseball diamond that was on the Centre Common at that time. Baseball, increasingly popular in America in the 1920s, had been played on the Centre Common for years.
The Framingham History Center holds a piece of the Liberty Pole in our collection. It is a gold-painted chunk of wood embellished with five stars and the word LIBERTY. It is undoubtedly a vital part of our town’s history. And regardless of where the flagpole stands, it represents a proud American town.
For more Framingham history and research assistance, contact research@framinghamhistory.org.