For decades, I’ve wondered (some, but not a lot) about the name of the Charter Oaks Bridge in Hartford, Connecticut
While that’s due in part to my penchant for historical odds and ends, it’s also due to the fact that I’ve been travelling over that bridge for decades. In the late 1970s, I assume I crossed it when I would hitchhike (and, for a time, drove an old VW bus) from Wesleyan University in Middletown, south of Hartford, to Boston, where my brother was living. After 1980, when I moved to Boston, I would have crossed the bridge initially when I would drive to visit my parents in New Jersey and later when I went to visit my in-laws on Long Island.
As we’d approach the bridge, I’d see a sign for it and sometimes wonder – as I often do about various roadside signs announcing historic sites, strange-sounding parks, and other ephemera – “what’s that about?”
Usually I forgot about such signs by the time I stop so I rarely tracked down the answers to my questions. I did, however, look up the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, but only because I wanted to get a T-shirt from them for my brother-in-law who is named Bruce. (I assume sales of such shirts is an important part of their cash flow). But, on the other hand, I’ve never looked up, or stopped at, the New England Carousel Museum in Bristol, CT, off of Route 84, the other route we would often take to Long Island or to the cottage my parents owned on Lake Owassa in northwest New Jersey.
Today, however, offers a long-overdue opportunity to learn about the Charter Oak because on January 9, 1788, Connecticut became the 5th state to ratify the US Constitution. To mark that moment (and to acknowledge that the Nutmeg State’s senators and representatives were among the money who defended the Constitution this week), the #stampoftheday is a 3-cent stamp, picturing the “Charter Oak” that was issued in 1935 to mark Connecticut’s tercentenary. (The stamp was reissued a year later as part of a four-stamp souvenir sheet for the Third International Philatelic Exhibition in New York City.)
The tree that is the bridge’s namesake was an unusually large white oak tree that was in what is now Hartford. In the 1630s, a delegation of local Native Americans supposedly encouraged the settler who was clearing much of the nearby land to preserve the then centuries-old tree, which, they reportedly told him, had “been the guide of our ancestors for centuries as to the time of planting our corn; when the leaves are the size of a mouse’s ears, then is the time to put the seed into the ground.”
Its name as the “Charter Oak” came from a series of events in the late 1600s. In 1662, King Charles II issued a charter giving the founders of the Connecticut Colony an unusual degree of autonomy. However, in 1686, his successor, James II, in an effort to exert more control over the various colonies in the northeast, order them to consolidate into a new Dominion of New England.
Sir Edmund Andros, the dominion’s new governor, went to each colony to collect their charters. In October 1687, he came to Hartford to collect the Connecticut charter. Unhappy residents supposedly produced the document. But either
– (a) the candles were suddenly doused during the ensuing discussion and document was taken out of the building and hidden in the tree
or
– (b) he was given a copy of the charter while the actual document was hidden in the tree.
Regardless, in 1688, James II was deposed and a year later Andros was forced from office a year later and the Dominion was dissolved.
In 1856, the tree was blown down in an intense storm. Timber from the tree was used to make the desk used by the state’s governor and chairs used by the Speaker of its House of Representatives and President of its State Senate.
The original Charter Oaks Bridge, which crosses the Connecticut River, was built as a toll bridge as part of the Wilbur Cross Highway, part of a pre-Interstate Highway plan to build a toll highway from Fairfield County in southern Connecticut all the way to the Massachusetts border in north-central Connecticut, near the town of Union.
Tragedy struck on December 4, 1941, when 16 men working on the bridge were killed when a 222-foot section fell into the icy Connecticut River (16 others were rescued). However, the bridge finally opened in 1942.
In 1991, it was replaced with a free bridge that then became the “official” (or at least preferred) connection between Route 84, which runs from the Massachusetts Turnpike to near Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Route 91 (which runs from New Haven to the Canadian border in Vermont. This means that I probably didn’t use the bridge very much until the 1990s – so I’ve actually only been ignoring its history for almost three decades not the better part of five.
Nevertheless, the stamp and its connection to a bridge I have often crossed (back in the days when we made road trips to visit other human beings) is a good reminder to follow and expand on the wise advice “to always read the plaque,” offered by Roman Mars and others from the wonderful 99% Invisible podcast.
As their webpage notes, “‘Always read the plaque’ has become a mantra with a deeper meaning: it is not just about reading actual plaques, but also a broader call to look more closely for stories embedded in everyday built environments.” So, in addition to reading plaques, take the time to also learn the stories behind the names on bridges and roads as well as taking the time to learn about and perhaps explore what as Tom Robbins might have said, any other roadside attractions.
Be well, stay safe, fight for justice, and work for peace.