“King Charles II. granted the people of Connecticut a very liberal charter of rights, which was publicly read in the Assembly at Hartford and declared to belong for ever to them and their successors.  A committee was appointed to take charge of it, under a solemn oath that they would preserve this palladium of the rights of the people.

“When James II., the tyrannical brother of Charles II., came to the throne, he changed the government of New England and ordered the people of Connecticut to give up their charter.  This they refused to do; and when a third command from the king had been sent to them, they called a special meeting of the Assembly, under their own governor, Treat, and resolved to hold on to the charter which had been given them.

“On the 31st of October, 1687, Sir Edmund Andros, attended by members of his council and a bodyguard of sixty soldiers, entered Hartford to take the charter by force.  The General Assembly was in session; he was received with courtesy, but with coldness.  He entered the assembly-room and publicly demanded the charter.  Remonstrances were made, and the session was protracted till evening.  The governor and his associates appeared to yield.  The charter was brought in and laid upon the table.  Sir Edmund thought that he had succeeded, when suddenly the lights were all put out, and total darkness followed.  There was no noise, no conflict, but all was quiet.  When the candles were again lighted, the charter was gone!  Sir Edmund was disconcerted.  He declared the government of Connecticut to be in his own hands, and that the colony was annexed to Massachusetts and the other New England colonies, and proceeded to appoint officers.  Captain Jeremiah Wadsworth, a patriot of those times, had hidden the charter in the hollow of Wyllis’s oak, whence it was afterward known as the Charter Oak.”

“Then the English governor couldn’t get it!” exclaimed Malcolm, delightedly.  “Wasn’t that splendid?”

“It was a grand hiding-place, certainly, for no one would think of looking inside a tree for such a thing as that, and they were grand men who preserved their country’s liberties in those trying times.  But more peaceful years were at hand.  About eighteen months after the charter had disappeared so mysteriously, the tyrant James II. was compelled to give up his throne to his daughter and son-in-law, the prince and princess of Orange, and Governor Treat and his associates again took the government of Connecticut under the old charter, which the hollow oak had faithfully kept from harm.  No tree in our whole country has received more attention than this historic Hartford oak; and when, at last, its mere shell of a trunk was laid low by a storm, it seemed as if a large part of the city had been swept away.

“Ancient oaks are apt to be almost entirely without branches; the huge trunk, with an opening at the top, and often with one also at the bottom, stands like a maimed giant, just tottering, perhaps, to its fall, because of the decay going on within, while outside all seems fair and sound.  It was so with the Charter Oak; and when this monarch of the forest was unexpectedly laid low, rich and poor, great and small, were gathered to mourn its loss.  A dirge was played and all the bells in the city were tolled at sundown, for this monument of the past was a link gone that could not be replaced.”