Once Upon A Time In Connecticut | Page 5

and forbade the reading of the duke's patent, and Andros,
not wishing to use force and pleased with this bold action although it
was against himself, sailed away. Now, however, the Duke of York had
become King of England with a new policy for the colonies, and
Andros was obeying the king's orders.
He was a soldier who had served with distinction in the army and had
held responsible positions. He was also a man used to courts as well as
to camps, for as a boy he had been a page in the king's household and
later was attached to the king's service. He must have presented a
contrast in appearance and manner to the Connecticut magistrates who
so anxiously awaited his coming.
When he entered the room he took the governor's seat and ordered the
king's commission to be read, which appointed him governor of all
New England. He then declared the old government to be dissolved and
asked that the charter under which it had been carried on should be
given up to him. The Assembly was obliged to recognize his authority
and to accept the new government; but a story of that famous meeting
has been handed down in Connecticut from one generation to another
telling how the people contrived to keep their charter, the document
they loved because it guaranteed their freedom.
"The Assembly sat late that night," says the story, "and the debate was
long." When Sir Edmund Andros asked for the charter it was brought in
and laid on the table. Then Robert Treat, who had been Governor of
Connecticut, rose and began a speech. He told of the great expense and
hardship the people had endured in planting the colony, of the blood

and treasure they had expended in defending it against "savages and
foreigners," and said it was "like giving up life now, to surrender the
patent and privileges so dearly bought and so long enjoyed." Suddenly,
while he was speaking, all the candles went out. There was a moment
of confusion; then some one brought a tinder-box and flint and the
candles were relighted. The room was unchanged; the same number of
people were there; but the table where the charter had lain was empty,
for in that moment of darkness the charter had disappeared.
No one knew who had taken it. No one could find it. No one saw the
candles blown out. Was it done on purpose, or did a door or a window
fly open and a gust of the night wind put them out? It chanced that the
night was Allhallowe'en, when the old tales say that the witches and
fairies and imps are abroad and busy. Were any of them busy that night
with Connecticut's charter?
"Two men in the room, John Talcott and Nathaniel Stanley, took the
charter when the lights were out." So said Governor Roger Wolcott
long afterward. He was a boy nine years old at the time and had often
heard the story. But these two men never left the room; they were
members of the Assembly; they could not carry off the charter.
However, Major Talcott had a son-in-law, Joseph Wadsworth, and he
was waiting outside,--so says another story. Wadsworth was young and
daring. The charter was passed out to him and he hid it under his cloak
and made his way swiftly through the crowd that had gathered around
the tavern and through the dim, deserted streets beyond, to where an
old oak tree grew in front of the Wyllys house. This tree had a hollow
in its trunk and Wadsworth slipped the charter into this safe
hiding-place and left it there. Houses might be searched, but no one
would think of looking for a missing paper in the hidden heart of a
hollow oak. And because the old tree proved a good guardian and gave
shelter in a time of trouble to Connecticut's charter it was known and
honored later as the Charter Oak.
[Illustration: WADSWORTH HIDING THE CHARTER From a
bas-relief on the State Capitol, Hartford, Conn.]
We are not told what was said or done in the court chamber after the

charter disappeared. The stories of that night are full of mystery and
contradiction. Perhaps, after all, no very serious search was made for it.
Perhaps its loss brought about a compromise between the two parties.
For Governor Andros had already gained his object; he had taken over
the government of Connecticut, and the people had saved their pride
because they had not surrendered their charter.
The charter lay hidden for two years; not all that time in the oak tree, of
course, but in some other safe place. One tradition says it was kept for a
while in Guilford in the house of Andrew Leete. At the