The Charter Oak Legacy
Hartford, Connecticut, United States
The legendary white oak that hid Connecticuts 1662 charter in 1687, felled in 1856, whose site, descendant oaks, and relic fragments remain objects of civic devotion in Hartford.
Connecticut's founding legend is a tree. When the royal governor demanded the colony's 1662 charter back in 1687, the story runs, candles were snuffed in the Hartford meeting house and the document was passed out a window and hidden in the hollow of a great white oak. The Charter Oak became the emblem of the state; when it fell in an 1856 storm, crowds gathered pieces of it like relics, and chairs made from its wood sit in the state Capitol, still used by the governor.
The tree's site on Charter Oak Avenue is marked, descendant oaks grow in the city, and the name saturates Hartford's civic geography. The legend was written down by the colony's own historians and is more patriotic myth than documented fact, which is precisely what makes it instructive: a community build its sacred history out of a tree, and the tree has stayed sacred long after dying.
Visiting
The Charter Oak monument site is at Charter Oak Ave near Wyllys St, Hartford; open public ground. See Connecticut History.
Photo: [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charter_Oak_FEChurch.jpeg), CC BY-SA.
Associated traditions & practices
Visitor stories