Charter Oak

Coordinates: 41°45′33″N 72°40′25″W / 41.75930°N 72.67355°W / 41.75930; -72.67355

The Charter Oak was an unusually large white oak tree growing, from around the 12th or 13th century until it fell during a storm in 1856, on what the English colonists named Wyllys Hyll, in Hartford, Connecticut, in the United States. According to tradition, Connecticut's Royal Charter of 1662 was hidden within the hollow of the tree to thwart its confiscation by the English governor-general. The oak became a symbol of American independence and is commemorated on the Connecticut State Quarter.

Early history

The Dutch explorer Adrian 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. Scions of the tree still grow in Hartford and many other towns around Connecticut.

Charter Oak (disambiguation)

The name Charter Oak refers to several things:

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