A plaque on Torrington’s Main Street marks the location of a pin oak tree planted in 1902 to honor the convention that considered revisions to Connecticut’s state constitution.
Torrington’s Consitition Oak stands across Main Street from the Hotchkiss-Fyler House, which now serves as a Museum and the headquarters for Torrington’s historical society.
The plaque at the foot of the 1902 oak (the larger tree near the center of the first image) provides a history of the oak donation program.
Delegates to the constitution convention were sent by all 168 Connecticut municipalities at the time, and each delegate was presented with a pin oak seedling by Charles Hawley, one of the state’s U.S. Senators.
The proposed constitutional amendments were defeated by voters.
Torrington’s delegate was Orsamus R. Fyler, a Civil War veteran who also served as Torrington’s postmaster, state insurance commissioner, Republican state chairman and a member of state railroad commission.
According to a 2002 survey of the pin oaks conducted by the Connecticut’s Notable Trees Program and the Connecticut College Arboretum, about 75 of the trees have died over the years, and the locations of 21 were not recorded.
Tags: constitution oak, Torrington