This Tulip Poplar is a direct bud-grafted descendant of the six-hundred-year-old Liberty Tree under which the Sons of Liberty of Maryland read the Declaration of Independence in 1776. When that historic tree fell in 1999 during Hurricane Floyd, it was the last living Liberty Tree. The new Liberty Tree was presented as a gift from The Providence Forum to Hillsdale College to celebrate and honor the college's extraordinary commitment to American liberty, with an appeal to remain "one nation under God" and to remember that people are "endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable Rights."