An icon of the American Revolution has been planted, literally, near the site of another revolutionary icon.

That site is Pawtuxet Park, not too far from where colonists boarded a long boat in June 1772 to burn HMS Gaspee as she was aground on Namquid Point.

The icon that was recently planted is the American Liberty Elm tree. On a sunny afternoon that’s been hard to come by as of late, Thursday, Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian, along with a gathering that included Cranston Mayor Allan Fung, Warwick City Councilman Steve Colantuono as well as members of the Pawtuxet Rangers, the Gaspee Days Committee and Pawtuxet Village Boy Scout Troops 1 and 4, commemorated the planting.

With the young 10-foot-tall tree, whose branches don’t quite form a shade-providing canopy yet, as the backdrop for the ceremony, Avedisian made a few remarks, while a few scouts read the verses from Thomas Paine’s poetic tribute to the revolutionary elm, “Liberty Tree.”

Scouts Raymond Norberg, 16, Richie Fredericks, 12, and Spencer Larson, 10, read the famous poem.

Avedisian said “it’s only fitting” that the tree be planted in Pawtuxet, near the site of the Gaspee burning. Settled in 1638, Pawtuxet is the one of the earliest settlements in Warwick and Cranston.

Much like the burning of the Gaspee, the stately tree with tremendous branches has been an enduring patriotic symbol of liberty and colonial protest against British rulers, who Avedisian said, “made it such an object of ridicule.”

The revolutionary group the Sons of Liberty, who were barred from public assembly, would meet informally under the famed elm tree in South Boston. To protest the much-maligned Stamp Act of 1765, members of the group hung effigies of British tax collectors off the branches of that elm.

A single musket shot by a Pawtuxet Ranger followed the remarks and reading of the poem. Avedisian shoveled mulch at the base of the tree and invited those who were gathered to do the same.

Warwick is one of just more than 300 cities and towns with a designated Liberty Tree Memorial.

The tree should grow quickly. Elms are renown for being able to survive even the toughest of elements. When fully mature, the tree should stand a majestic 35 to 40 feet tall, with its branches forming a canopy around it. Because of its characteristics, the elm was a popular street tree, lining and shading many streets throughout the United States.

The American Liberty Elm is a breed of elm specially cultivated by the Elm Research Institute in New Hampshire to be disease resistant. The elm tree in North America was previously in danger of being completely wiped out by a fungus, in an arboreal epidemic that swept the United States in the mid-20th century, called Dutch Elm Disease.

Rhode Island’s elm trees were among the 100 million trees nationwide that fell victim to this epidemic, which was spread largely by beetles. Even Elm Street in Warwick had no elms left.

A few local trees did survive, according to Warwick landscape architect Margie Ryan, including one on Centerville Road, by Captain’s Catch Seafood. The city has been growing disease-resistant elms at its tree farm, Ryan said. Other elms have been planted on Greenwich Avenue, West Shore Road and Post Road.

Ryan said that Chuck Lewis, a retired Warwick resident, was largely responsible for bringing the American Liberty Elm Tree to Warwick. An aficionado of American history—particularly of the American Revolution—Lewis has had a fascination with the Liberty ever since reading “Johnny Tremain.”

Two years ago he became interested in the elm tree restoration project, planting one in his own backyard. Lewis soon learned about the American Liberty Tree Memorial campaign and “was very surprised to find out” that Warwick was not among the participating communities.

Calling the Gaspee burning “the first blow for American freedom,” Lewis was soon asking, “My city isn’t one that’s listed [as a Liberty Tree Memorial community]? How do we make this happen?”

Lewis applied for grants, which were provided by a company in Vermont and which covered the tree’s $1,500 cost.

“All the city had to pay for was shipping and handling,” he said.

Bill O’Donnell, scoutmaster for Gaspee Plateau Boy Scout Troop 4, said he was glad the boy scouts were invited to participate in the ceremony.

“Our troops were both born here, where the nation was born. It’s all a part of history, unity and community service, and these are all things that the boy scouts stand for,” O’Donnell said.

Yvonne Spalthoff, assistant director of the Elm Research Institute in Keene, N.H., explained that the institute started at research labs at University of Wisconsin in 1967. J.P. Hansel, the institute’s founder, had tried to save the elms on his own property, to no avail.

Spalthoff said Hansel had left his neighborhood to serve in the Vietnam War. When he came back a few years later, all of the elms had disappeared. It was as though “crews had come in and chain-sawed the neighborhood overnight.”

But he persisted, Spalthoff said. So he knocked on doors, gathered donations. By 1984 the institute had bred a tree injected with a disease resistant fungicide, and was finally ready to test the trees in the real world—America’s streets.

The Elm Research Institute’s trees have a lifetime warranty, and so far have had a 99 percent survival rate against Dutch Elm Disease.

The institute is a nonprofit organization funded by corporate sponsors, grants from foundations and by donations received from members and other individuals.