THE CHARTER OAK LEGEND PERSISTS
But what about its forgotten monument in Hartford?
HARTFORD – Hartford’s Charter Oak blew over in a violent storm in the 1850s, but the mighty tree has endured as a symbol of Connecticut’s independent spirit, its name gracing city streets, a riverfront park, a bridge and a monument.
Wait. A monument?
Often overlooked since it was erected in 1907, the cylindrical stone memorial at the corner of Charter Oak Avenue and Charter Oak Place could be lifted out of obscurity: A neighborhood group is pushing for the monument to take its proper place among landmarks in the city.
“I live here, and I was always frustrated that people didn’t know it was here,” Jennifer Lotstein, a Charter Oak Place resident who is leading the effort, said. “I started learning more and more about the importance, and then I became passionate about how relevant it is in the city and
the state and even to the country, in certain aspects.”
In the late 1990s, when the U.S. Mint issued a set of commemorative state quarters, the Charter Oak was chosen for the reverse side of the Connecticut coin. (One of those coins has been affixed to the sidewalk in front of the memorial.)
The group already has developed a master plan for refurbishing the memorial and landscaping the narrow, sloping strip of a city-owned park that extends east from the monument. The work could cost $300,000 and would depend on a combination of private fundraising, public funding and historic preservation grants.
Lotstein said she hopes work can begin next spring, but there are hurdles to clear. They include getting the monument included in the neighborhood historic district and developing a plan of conservancy, key to securing grant money to restore the monument. The city says it is supportive of the effort, and it is helping to secure grants to pay for the preliminary studies.
The cost to landscape the park — the largest share of the price tag — with flowering trees, accent roses, a boulder garden wall and ivy ground cover would likely lean heavily on private fundraising. The project is not in the city’s parks budget.
The master plan, rendered by To Design of New Britain and costing $3,000, was paid for through donations, including $1,000 from the neighborhood revitalization zone; $500 from Joseph Novoseller, the apartment building owner who is converting the former St. Peter’s School into rentals; and $1,500 from a community fundraiser.
Charter Oak legend persists
Generations of schoolchildren have been taught about the legend of the Charter Oak.
As the story goes, the royal official of the King of England attempted to repossess Connecticut’s royal charter during a meeting on Nov. 1, 1687. Suddenly, all the candles in the room were snuffed out and the charter disappeared and was supposedly stuffed in the hollow of a massive white oak, since known as the Charter Oak.
If true, the gesture may have been an empty one because the colony’s government was dissolved anyway and didn’t resume until two years later when there was a new king and queen on the throne.
The veracity of the story long has been debated, but the legend has persisted, making Connecticut stand out for a tradition of independent thinking and risk-taking.
When the revered oak — easily dating from the time Columbus first set sail — toppled in a violent storm in 1856, it was a cause for widespread mourning. Bells tolled in Hartford, and the demise of the Charter Oak was covered around the nation and abroad.
The wood from the felled tree was fashioned into what became treasured items, including the ceremonial seat of the president of the Connecticut Senate and a frame containing the colonial charter, both on display at the state Capitol.
But the legend took on a life of its own when it came to relics made from the tree. Mark Twain famously groused about having seen “Charter Oak enough to build a plank road from here to Salt Lake City.”
A forgotten monument
Today, the monument is discolored from decades of exposure to the weather and overhanging branches from an oak — not a scion of the original — that partly obscures the monument.
The monument — and the park behind it — have become a repository for trash. On a recent visit to the memorial by Lotstein and Mary E. Falvey, executive director of the Hartford Preservation Alliance, there were discarded liquor nips at the base and an overturned, discarded coffee cup on the wrought-iron fence surrounding the landmark.
“This is what happens to monuments historically is that they put them up with all good intentions, but someone has to maintain them, and someone has to keep a look out for them,” Falvey said. “That’s why we have concerned citizens, because we’ve lost monuments.”
Falvey pointed to the World War II monument in the Parkville neighborhood where a street reconfiguration meant the removal of honor rolls with the names of those who had served.
For all its place in state history, the Charter Oak Memorial — basically a cylinder topped with an orb adorned with dolphins — is rather nondescript, unlike other works by its well-regarded designer Charles A. Platt. The monument also is not in the exact spot where the tree stood; that’s across Charter Oak Place where a building now stands.
Falvey said the goal is to not only recognize the Charter Oak’s place in colonial history but that the tree was important to the Suckiaug tribe, the first inhabitants of Hartford.
Legend has it that the tribe asked early Hartford settlers not to cut down the tree. Each spring, the Suckiaugs watched as the leaves emerged, and when they were “as big as a mouse’s ear,” the tribe would plant their corn, their most important crop, according to State Historian Walter Woodward.
The fact that the legend has come down through colonial accounts gives the Charter Oak additional stature.
“It talks about how foundationally important this tree was,” Harrison, an associate professor of early American history at UConn, said.
This isn’t the first time there has been a push to bring more attention to the monument.
In the early 2000s, the neighborhood, led by longtime resident Lynn Ferrari, pushed for the city to take better care of the park, and there was an even more ambitious plan for the monument.
Since the monument wasn’t in the same spot as the tree, the neighborhood suggested moving it farther east into the park and weaving a history wall around it. A modest plaza for visitors also could have been created where “people could sit and talk,” Ferrari said.
But Ferrari said the city’s landscape architect, whom the neighborhood was working with, was laid off, and “there wasn’t going to be any money for a while.”
This time around, the plan is more modest: Put brick pavers around the front of monument, replace stone slabs with historically accurate “bollards” that resemble those that were placed in front of the monument in the advent of the automobile and add a historical information sign.
“The idea here is to have it accessible,” Lotstein said. For more information on the effort, contact charteroakmonument@gmail.com. Tax deductible donations can be made at theiquiltplan.org/donate, by including “Charter Oak” in the comment box.