The celebrated Charter Oak is the great memory of Hartford. In 1856 the old tree was blown down in a storm, and a marble slab marks where it stood. The remains of the tree were fashioned into many precious relics, and our friend of humorous memory, Mark Twain, who lives in Hartford, says he has seen all conceivable articles made out of this precious timber, there being, among others, "a walking-stick, dog-collar, needle-case, three-legged stool, bootjack, dinner-table, tenpin alley, toothpick, and enough Charter Oak to build a plank-road from Hartford to Great Salt Lake City." This ancient tree concealed the royal charter of the Connecticut colony, granted by the King, when, in 1687, the tyrannical Governor Andros came to Hartford with his troops and demanded its surrender. While the subject was being discussed in the Legislature, the lights were suddenly put out, and in the darkness a bold colonist seized the precious document, and running out, concealed it in the hollow of the oak. The fine statue surmounting the Capitol dome and overlooking the city is now, with extended arm, crowning the municipality with a wreath of Charter Oak leaves, and the oak leaf is repeated in many ways in the decoration of the Capitol and of many other buildings in the city. The Charter Oak Bank and Life Insurance Company are also flourishing institutions. In proportion to population, Hartford is regarded as the wealthiest city in America, and it is financially great, particularly in Life and Fire Insurance Companies, whose business is wide-spread. It has many charitable foundations, book-publishing houses, banks, manufacturing establishments and educational institutions, the most noted of the latter being Trinity College, in the southern part of the city, its brownstone Early English buildings having a grand view across the intervening valley to the hills of Farmington and Talcott Mountain, nine miles westward.