LEGEND RECORDS “Liberty, Property & no Stamps” on a flag flown on the first Portsmouth Liberty Pole in January 1766. In response to British attempts to tax products without American representation in Parliament, the Portsmouth Sons of Liberty returned the royal commission of the local stamp agent to England. They then erected a flagstaff and rechristened the old span “Liberty Bridge”—a name it bore until the City filled the waterway in 1899. A new pole, erected with public donations in 1824, was “adorned with a cap, and surmounted with a splendid eagle” as a patriotic memorial. In 1857, a shield was attached to the pole and in 1899 the pole was again replaced to hold the regilded 1824 eagle.