HISTORIC TREES 149 



by prearranged signal and in the resulting confu- 

 sion the charter was deftly borne away by a patriot 

 named Wadsworth. In vain did Andross storm, 

 declare the assembly dissolved, write Finis on 

 its journal and order his soldiers to seize its records. 

 The charter had been carefully hidden in a large 

 cavity near my roots, and when, in a few months, 

 James II was driven from the English throne and 

 Andross from New England the colonists relieved 

 me of my charge. English jurists decided that as 

 the charter had never been yielded up it was still 

 in effect. Thus was Connecticut liberty preserved 

 for sixty-nine additional years, when intolerable 

 injustices in other directions made concerted revolt 

 by all the colonies necessary. 



"Soon after my important duty had been per- 

 formed, the entrance to the hole which had held 

 the precious document began to close up, as if to 

 indicate that its mission was ended. You can see 

 that now only a slight crevice is left." 



And having finished its narrative, this remark- 

 able tree dropped its leaves in a silence from which 

 the most excited questioning could not arouse it. 



Up to 1810 there existed at Shackamaxon, Penn- 

 sylvania, now the Kensington section of Philadel- 

 phia, a superb elm known as the "Treaty Tree." 

 It was memorable as the place where William Penn 



