Hartford 2

I began this morning with a visit to the Museum of Connecticut History . This small museum, really more of a document and artifact collection, is housed in the Connecticut State Library, in the same building as the CT Supreme Court. It was actually a non-trivial exercise to track it down. It is a bit long in the tooth and lacks structure. The large exhibit stands depict important, but general events in U.S. history that are not specifically relevant to CT.

The main CT theme and many of the artifacts relate to Connecticut’s history of constitutional government and the reason it calls itself “The Constitution State.” Two significant documents contribute to this story, the 1639 Fundamental Orders, which bound the three original towns of Windsor, Wethersfield and Hartford into a colonial entity, and the Royal Charter of 1662 granted by King Charles II. As the legend goes , when agents of James II attempted to seize the charter 25 years later in 1697, a blackout was engineered, allowing the colonists to spirit away the document and hide it in a majestic oak tree on the Wyllys estate in Hartford. This preserved the charter and the rights of the colonists. For over a hundred and fifty years, the Charter Oak was a prominent and widely recognized Connecticut landmark until it was toppled during an 1856 storm.

Two additional rooms now house the large collection of historical Colt firearms that was given to the Museum Of Connecticut History in 1957. The now defunct Colt armory in Hartford made Connecticut a major center for firearms manufacturing throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1994, Colt's Manufacturing Company vacated the Hartford complex amid financial difficulties, consolidating operations at a West Hartford location opened in the 1960s. The historical armory complex is slated to become part of Coltsville National Historical Park, now undergoing planning by the National Park Service.

Tomorrow I head to the Coast to explore the Groton / Mystic area.