Charter Oak

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

Charter Oak - Early history:

The Dutch explorer Adrian (or Adrian) Block described in his log in 1614, a tree on the upcoming website Hartford, as this one. In the 1630s, is a delegation of local Indians are said to have approached Samuel Willis, an early settler who owned and cleared much of the land around it, to promote its conservation and described it as planted ceremonially, for peace, when their tribe first settled in the area.

Charter Oak - The Charter Oak Incident:

The name "Charter Oak" stems from the local legend in which a cavity in the tree, was used in late 1687 as a hideaway for the document which contained a colony's charter.

So much for the Charter is history:

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

His successor, James II, gathered several colonies in the Dominion of New England, and to take greater control over them.

He appointed as governor-general over it Sir Edmund Andres, who declared his appointment had known charters of the various components of the colonies, and probably see the symbolic value of the physical delivery of documents that went to each colony to collect them.

Andres arrived in Hartford in late October 1687, where his task was at least as unfortunate as it had been in the other colonies.

According to the dominant tradition demanded other documents, it is produced, but during the ensuing debate, the lights were doused, hides spiriting of parchment out of a window, and thence to Oak.

Two seldom cited documents, one contemporary and one from the beginning of the next century, travel less dramatic possibilities, suggesting that a parchment copy was made of the true charter as early as June, in anticipation of the arrival of Andres:

It has been suggested that the copy was surreptitiously instead of the original (and the original secreted in oak lest others find it on any sides of buildings) and other left believing he had succeeded.

Logically, such a copy (whether hidden in oak or otherwise) may instead have been observed for the value it may have for propaganda, for morale, or applying for its reinstatement.

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

Charter Oak - Subsequent history:

Charter Oak was already in poor condition from the time the event is named after, reached a circumference of 20 or 30 feet before August 21, 1856, when it fell on the night in a severe storm. Formal mourning was held for the wood pieces 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.) Gone without the State Capitol and Bushnell Park.

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

Charter Oak - images of wood:

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

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

In front of a commemorative coin half dollar, issued in 1935, and

The reverse of the Connecticut state quarter issued in 1999.

Charter Oak State College, a school for adult learners in New Britain, Connecticut, is named after the famous tree.