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Page 62
[1] Mr. Ellis was a Unitarian clergyman, long pastor of a church
at Charlestown, Mass.
[2] Kensington is now a part of Philadelphia, being the northeastern
section. It lies on the Delaware River, about two miles distant
from the City Hall, and is a center of the ship-building industry.
THE CHARTER OAK AFFAIR IN CONNECTICUT
(1682)
BY ALEXANDER JOHNSTON[1]
In December, 1686, the Hartford authorities were called upon to
measure their strength again with their old antagonist. Andros had
landed at Boston, commissioned as governor of all New England, and
bent on abrogating the charters. Following Dudley's lead, he wrote to
Treat, suggesting that by this time the trial of the writs had
certainly gone against the colony; and that the authorities would do
much to commend the colony to his majesty's good pleasure by entering
a formal surrender of the charter. The colony authorities were
possibly as well versed in the law of the case as Andros, and they
took good care to do nothing of the sort; and, as the event showed,
they thus saved the charter.
The assembly met as usual in October, 1687; but their records show
that they were in profound doubt and distress. Andros was with them,
accompanied by some sixty regular soldiers, to enforce his demand for
the charter. It is certain that he did not get it, tho the records, as
usual, are cautious enough to give no reason why. Tradition is
responsible for the story of the charter oak. The assembly had met the
royal governor in the meeting-house; the demand for the charter had
been made; and the assembly had exhausted the resources of language to
show to Andros how dear it was to them, and how impossible it was to
give it up. Andros was immovable; he had watched that charter with
longing eyes from the banks of the Hudson, and he had no intention of
giving up his object now that the king had put him in power on the
banks of the Connecticut.
Toward evening the case had become desperate. The little democracy was
at last driven into a corner, where its old policy seemed no longer
available; it must resist openly, or make a formal surrender of its
charter. Just as the lights were lighted, the legal authorities
yielded so far as to order the precious document to be brought in and
laid on the table before the eyes of Andros. Then came a little more
debate. Suddenly the lights were blown out; Captain Wadsworth, of
Hartford, carried off the charter, and hid it in a hollow oak-tree on
the estate of the Wyllyses, just across the "riveret;" and when the
lights were relighted the colony was no longer able to comply with
Andros's demand for a surrender.
Altho the account of the affair is traditional, it is difficult to
see any good grounds for impeaching it on that account. It supplies,
in the simplest and most natural manner, a blank in the Hartford
proceedings of Andros which would otherwise be quite unaccountable.
His plain purpose was to force Connecticut into a position where she
must either surrender the charter or resist openly. He failed: the
charter never was in his possession; and the official records assign
no reason for his failure. The colony was too prudent, and Andros too
proud to put the true reason on record. Tradition supplies the gap
with an exactness which proves itself.
Having done all that men could do, Treat and his associates bowed for
the time to superior force. Andros was allowed to read his commission,
and Treat, Fitz-John and Wait Winthrop, and John Allyn received
appointments as members of his council for New England. John Allyn
made what the governor doubtless considered to be the closing record
for all time. But it is noteworthy that the record was so written as
to flatter Andros's vanity, while it really put in terms a declaration
of over-powering force, on which the commonwealth finally succeeded in
saving her charter from invalidation, it is as follows:
"At a General Court at Hartford, October 31st, 1887, his excellency,
Sir Edmund Andross, knight and Captain General and Governor of His
Majesty's territories and dominions in New England, by order of His
Majesty James the Second, King of England, Scotland, France, and
Ireland, the 31st of October, 1687, took into his hands the
government of the colony of Connecticut, it being by His Majesty
annexed to Massachusetts and other colonies under his excellency's
government.
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