Charter Oak

The Charter Oak was an unusually large white oak tree growing, from around the 12^th or 13^th century until 1856, on what the English colonists named Wyllys Hill, in Hartford, Connecticut, USA.

Early history

The Dutch explorer Adrian (or Adriaen) Block described, in his log in 1614, a tree, at the future site of Hartford, understood to be this one. In the 1630s, a delegation of local Indians is said to have approached Samuel Wyllys, the early settler who owned and cleared much of the land around it, encouraging its preservation and describing it as planted ceremonially, for the sake of peace, when their tribe first settled in the area.

The Charter Oak Incident

The name "Charter Oak" stems from the local legend in which a cavity within the tree was used in late 1687 as a hiding place for the document that embodied the colony's charter.

This much regarding the charter is history:

King Charles II, in 1662, granted the Connecticut Colony an unusual degree of autonomy.

His successor, James II, consolidated several colonies into the Dominion of New England, in part to take firmer control of them.

He appointed as governor-general over it Sir Edmund Andros who stated his appointment had invalidated the charters of the various constituent colonies, and presumably seeing symbolic value in physically reclaiming the documents, went to each colony to collect them.

Andros arrived in Hartford late in October 1687, where his mission was at least as unwelcome as it had been in the other colonies.

According to the dominant tradition, Andros demanded the document and it was produced, but during ensuing discussion, the lights were doused, concealing the spiriting of the parchment out a window and thence to the Oak.

Two seldom cited documents, one contemporaneous and one from early in the next century, raise less dramatic possibilities, by suggesting that a parchment copy had been made of the true charter as early as June, in anticipation of Andros's arrival:

It has been suggested that the copy was surreptitiously substituted for the original (and the original secreted in the oak lest Andros find it in any search of buildings), and that Andros left believing he had succeeded.

Logically, such a copy (whether hidden in the oak or not) might instead have been the one kept, for the value it might have in propaganda, for morale, or in petitioning for its reinstatement.

The Museum of Connecticut History (a subdivision of the Connecticut State Library) credits the idea that Andros never got the original charter, and displays a parchment that it regards as the original. (The Connecticut Historical Society is said to possess a "fragment" of it.)

Later history

The Charter Oak was already in poor condition from the time of the incident it was named for, though it achieved a circumference of 20 or 30 feet before August 21, 1856, when it fell at night in a severe storm. Formal mourning was held for it, pieces of its wood were treated as relics (including three chairs, one of which is the ceremonial seat of the president of the state Senate). New trees sprouted from its acorns were planted, including an oak forest, and trees standing as of 1996 less than a mile (about a km.) away, outside the State Capitol and in Bushnell Park.

A monument was built in 1909 near where the tree stood; it remains, as of 2000, as a feature of Charter Oak Tree Park at the corner of Charter Oak Avenue and Charter Oak Place (at the foot of South Prospect Street a block off Main Street, and half a block from the Historical Society's building).

Depictions of the tree

The Charter Oak appears on

Four paintings by Charles Dewolf Brownell (1822 - 1909), including "Connecticut Charter Oak" or "Charter Oak" in the collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum, and one owned by the Connecticut Historical Society dated at 1855; at least one is dated 1857.

A 3-cent U.S. postage stamp issued in 1935,

The obverse of a commemorative half-dollar issued in 1935, and

The reverse of the Connecticut state quarter issued in 1999.

Charter Oak State College, a college for adult learners in New Britain, Connecticut, is named for the celebrated tree.

References

Excerpt from Our Country, vol. I, late 19^th century

Connecticut Colony Charter of 1662

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