A ceremony commemorating the 250th anniversary of the United States of America will be held beginning at 10 a.m. Saturday at Tamaqua Liberty Tree Park.

The 31 N. Railroad St. site across from the Tamaqua Train Station is the home of Schuylkill County’s Liberty Tree.

The ceremony will open with a welcome from Tamaqua Mayor David Clemson and will include music by the Cressona Band, participation by Tamaqua’s C.H. Berry American Legion Post No. 173, prayer offered by Pastor Josh Nemeth of St. Peter’s Church in Mahoning Valley and participation by the Tamaqua/Mahanoy Chapter of the Masonic Lodge.

The Pledge of Allegiance will be led by Don Serfass, and the national anthem will be performed by area vocalist Carly Green. A recitation of Thomas Paine’s poem “Liberty Tree” will be offered by Steve Ulincy, a Benjamin Franklin impersonator and American history teacher at Tamaqua Area High School.

The guest speaker will be John E. Jones III, president of Dickinson College and former chief judge of the U.S. Middle District Court of Pennsylvania. A native of Schuylkill County, Jones was officially named Dickinson’s 30th president in 2022 after serving as interim president beginning in 2021.

He is a graduate of Mercersburg Academy, Dickinson College, and Penn State Dickinson Law. Before assuming the presidency, Jones served as chair of Dickinson’s board of trustees and concluded a distinguished career on the federal bench as chief judge of the U.S. Middle District Court of Pennsylvania. Appointed by Presirent George W. Bush and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2002, he served for nearly two decades and presided over a number of high-profile cases.

In addition to his judicial service, Jones cochaired Governor-elect Tom Ridge’s transition team and served as chair of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board. His career has been recognized with numerous honors, including being named one of the Time 100 most influential people in the world in 2006, receiving the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s inaugural John Marshall Judicial Independence Award, and being inducted into the George Washington Spirit Society.

As part of the ceremony, the Mahantongo Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution will dedicate an America 250 Patriots Marker at the park.

Liberty Tree Park has emerged over the past two years as one of Tamaqua’s most meaningful new public spaces, created through the removal of long-blighted properties along North Railroad Street and the vision of transforming the site into a place of reflection, education and community gathering.

The Liberty Tree is part of a broader statewide effort tied to the America250PA initiative. Inspired by the original Liberty Trees, where colonists gathered in protest and unity in the years leading up to the American Revolution, the modern Liberty Tree Project seeks to plant living symbols of freedom in communities across Pennsylvania. The tree in Tamaqua is a descendant of the last surviving Liberty Tree in Annapolis, Maryland, which was later lost during a hurricane, providing a tangible living link to that earlier symbol of American independence.

As the park is home to Schuylkill County’s Liberty Tree Bell, a student-led project developed by Tamaqua Area Middle School Art Club students under the direction of Kim Woodward, further linking the next generation to the nation’s founding ideals.