Once Upon A Time In Connecticut | Page 2

the future of
the United States of America.
If this little volume gives to the children of Connecticut a truer
appreciation of the early history of the state in which they live, its
purpose will have been achieved. A knowledge of Connecticut's history,
its men and the work they have accomplished, should arouse the
devotion and loyalty of every Connecticut boy and girl to the state and
its welfare; and that it shall do so is the hope of those by whom this
work has been projected and under whose auspices it has been
published.
CHARLES M. ANDREWS.

CONTENTS
I. THE HOUSE OF HOPE AND THE CHARTER OAK
II. TWO INDIAN WARRIORS
III. A HARBOR FOR SHIPS
IV. THREE JUDGES
V. THE FORT ON THE RIVER
VI. THE FROGS OF WINDHAM

VII. OLD WOLF PUTNAM
VIII. THE BULLET-MAKERS OF LITCHFIELD
IX. NEWGATE PRISON
X. THE DARK DAY
XI. A FRENCH CAMP IN CONNECTICUT
XII. NATHAN HALE

ILLUSTRATIONS
I. WADSWORTH HIDING THE CHARTER II. MIANTONOMO'S
MONUMENT III. MEDAL COMMEMORATING THE FOUNDING
OF NEW HAVEN IV. THE JUDGES' CAVE ON WEST ROCK V.
THE SITE OF SAYBROOK FORT VI. THE WYOMING
MASSACRE VII. GENERAL PUTNAM VIII. KING GEORGE THE
THIRD IX. THE RUINS OF NEWGATE PRISON X. AN OLD
CONNECTICUT INN, 1790 XI. THE MARQUIS OF LAFAYETTE
XII. NATHAN HALE

ONCE UPON A TIME IN CONNECTICUT
THE HOUSE OF HOPE AND THE CHARTER OAK
A great oak tree fell in the city of Hartford on August 21, 1856. The
night had been wild and stormy; in the early morning a violent wind
twisted and broke the hollow trunk about six feet above the ground, and
the old oak that had stood for centuries was overthrown.
All day long people came to look at it as it lay on the ground. Its wood
was carefully preserved and souvenirs were made from it: chairs, tables,
boxes, picture-frames, wooden nutmegs, etc. One section of the trunk is
to-day in the possession of the Connecticut Historical Society.

Tradition says that this tree was standing, tall and vigorous, when the
first English settlers reached Hartford and began to clear the land; that
the Indians came to them then, as they were felling trees, and begged
them to spare that one because it told them when to plant their corn.
"When its leaves are the size of a mouse's ears," they said, "then is the
time to put the seed in the ground."
At sunset, on the day when it fell, the bells of Hartford tolled and flags
draped in mourning were displayed on the gnarled and broken trunk,
for this tree was the Charter Oak, and its story is bound up with the
story of the Connecticut Colony.
About the year 1613, five little ships set sail from Holland on voyages
for discovery and trade in the New World. They were the Little Fox,
the Nightingale, the Tiger, and two called the Fortune. The Tiger was
under the command of a bold sailor named Adriaen Block and he
brought her across the ocean to New Netherland, which is now New
York. There was then a small Dutch village of a few houses on
Manhattan Island.
While she was anchored off the island, the Tiger took fire and burned.
But Block was not discouraged. He set to work at once and built
another boat--one of the first built in America. She was 40 feet, 6
inches long by 11 feet, 6 inches wide, and he called her the Restless. In
the summer of 1614 he sailed her up the East River and out into Long
Island Sound where no white man had ever been before. He named
both the Bast River and the Sound "Hellegat," after a river in Holland,
and a narrow passage in the East River is still known as "Hell-Gate."
Block sailed along the low wooded shores of Connecticut, past the
mouth of the Housatonic, which he named the "River of the Red
Mountain," and reported it to be "about a bowshot wide," and by and
by he came to a much larger stream emptying into the Sound. This was
the Connecticut, and Block turned and sailed up the river as far as the
point where Hartford now stands. He noticed that the tide did not flow
far into this river and that the water near its mouth was fresh, so he
called it the "Fresh River."

When the Dutch in Manhattan heard of this new country which he had
discovered, they began a fur trade with the Indians who lived there. In
June, 1633, they bought from the Indians a strip of land on the river,
one Dutch mile in length by one third of a mile in width, and they paid
for it with "one piece of duffel [that is, heavy cloth] twenty-seven