The Connecticut Tercentenary

The stamp commemorates the 300th anniversary of the settling of Connecticut. According to history, John Winthrop received permission from England to establish the first colony at the mouth of the Connecticut River at Old Saybrook in 1635 and was granted a charter in 1662. In 1687 the new king of England sent Sir Edmund Andros to retrieve the charter and take control of the colony. Legend has it that the colonists refused and hid the charter in the hollow of a huge oak tree. The Charter Oak as it was known became Connecticut's state tree. It was uprooted in a violent storm in 1856. The rendering of the Charter Oak pictured on the stamp comes from a painting by Charles De Wolf Brownell. The stamp was issued in Hartford, Connecticut on April 26, 1935.