Don't miss this rare opportunity to view legendary Charter Oak document

The Royal Charter of 1662 is considered one of the state’s most significant political and legal documents. It gave royal approval of the colony’s Fundamental Orders of 1639 and it became a piece of Connecticut folklore when King James II tried to revoke the charter in 1687.

In response, a colonist allegedly hid it in a large white oak tree, later called the Charter Oak.

Today, the document, which was written on parchment and is currently valued at over $10 million, has had a bit of a facelift. It recently underwent a six-month conservation treatment at the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NDCC) in Andover, Massachusetts.

The restored charter will be put on public display Tuesday, Feb. 4, at the Connecticut State Library in Hartford for one day and then locked away in a fire proof case for its own protection.

“It really needed to have a thorough examination,” said Lizette Pelletier Connecticut's state archivist. “Cleaning, and whatever necessary, to preserve it for hopefully another 400 years.”

A sticky situation

The charter was exposed to sunlight, dirt and pollution for hundreds of years. But in 1878 the Secretary of the State’s office glued all three pages of the document, which was made from parchment, together into one long vertical sheet and put a backing on it.

The parchment is animal skin. So when glued, it became too wet and partially gelatinized. That may have created a permanent seal between each page, conservationists say.

As a result, restoration workers were unable to separate the three pages, said Katie Boodle, a senior conservator at NDCC, who worked on the document.

“We can't treat it [the parchment] the same way that we would a piece of paper,” Boodle said. “We're really limited in the types of treatments that we can do on it.”

So workers decided to take a minimal approach to the restoration and do what they could to stabilize the parchment, Boodle said.

“It was removing older repairs that were done with what was essentially, like a cardboard paper and kind of replacing them with a more stable material that wasn't going to influence the parchment skin in any way,” she said. “And wasn't going to be acidic or degrading to the piece in the future.”

The restoration process also revealed previously forgotten artwork at the top of the charter; illustrations of birds and flowers.

How to see it

The NDCC created two reproductions of the Royal Charter, which will be on permanent display at the Connecticut State Library.

One version is how the Royal Charter of 1662 looks today and the other is how it would have looked like when it was written.

All three documents will be on display together for one day only: Tuesday Feb. 4, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., in Memorial Hall in the Museum of Connecticut History, located within the Connecticut State Library in Hartford.

Visitors will notice that the original Royal Charter will be displayed horizontally, not vertically.

“Just like gravity is not kind to our skin, it is not good for the parchment either,” Pelletier said.