“Connecticut State Symbols”

Hours:

Friday, November 27 – Saturday, December19

Thursdays ─ Sundays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Twilight Tours: Fridays ─ December 4, 11, 18 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Connecticut State Symbols is the theme for the 2026 holiday event at the Osborne Homestead Museum. Eight garden clubs will each decorate a room illustrating one of the many symbols of Connecticut ranging from our state food, pizza, to the state mammal, the sperm whale. This year, the Long Hill Garden Club is decorating the studio following the theme of our state tree, the Charter Oak. In keeping with the 250th anniversary of the founding of our country, we will decorate the room in a colonial Christmas motif.

According to legend, the Connecticut Charter was hidden in a tree in October of 1687 to prevent it from being surrendered to the British King, James II. The Governor and Assembly were gathered in the public meeting house when the king’s representative arrived to take the Charter. It being October, candles were lighted to dispel the evening darkness. When the Charter was laid upon the table the lights were extinguished, and when the candles were relit, the Charter was gone. It had been secreted away in the hollow of a tree by Captain Wadsworth, who in 1715, was voted 20 shillings for “safely keeping and preserving” the Charter during a “very troublesome season when our constitution was struck at.”

Come visit the 1840 farmhouse, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and see how each of its rooms is transformed for the holidays highlighting a state symbol. You will see depicted the robin, Mountain Laurel, praying mantis, a dinosaur, the Siberian Husky, pizza, a whale, and, of course, the Charter Oak.