FLAG, AMERICAN

The early colonies of America used the British flag, a white banner with the red cro of St. George, but in pre-revolutionary times they had flags of different colors with a device in the upper left-hand corner of a tree, a hemisphere, or some emblem. On the eve of the revolution and during it, banners of all kinds appeared with devices symbolizing liberty, and inscribed with mottoes expre ing defiance of Great Britain. After the Battle of Lexington a flag bearing the arms of the colony was used and ships leaving New York carried flags on which a beaver was represented, The ‘Pine Tree’ flag was flown from many American ships when Washington was in authority. One of the early flags of the South was displayed at Richmond on ‘September, 1775. It was blue with a crescent in the upper left-hand corner and later bore the inscription ‘Liberty or Death.’ A flag flown by Washington at Cambridge, Ma ., in 1776, had thirteen red and white stripes with a Union Jack where the stars are now. One of the most popular flags at this period bore the device of a coiled rattlesnake, having thirteen rattles and the motto ‘Don’t Tread On Me.’ A flag of blue with eight stars was used in Rhode Island, 1776-1777. |The Continental Congre first took action in regard to a national flag June 14, 1777, when it pa ed the resolution ‘That the flag of the 13 United States be 13 stripes alternate red and white; that the union be 13 stars in white on a blue field representing a new constellation.’ The Congre appointed a committee consisting of Washington, Robert Morris and Col. George Ro to devise the flag with the help of Mrs. Elizabeth Ro . Many believe that the coat-of-arms of the Washington family which contains stars and stripes furnished the main idea for the flag. Paul Jones claimed to have been the first to raise the national flag at sea, and on land the first, hastily put together, was raised over Fort Stanwix, August 6, 1777, after an encounter with the British. After Vermont was admitted to the union in 1791, and Kentucky in 1792, the Congre in 1794 added stars and stripes to the flag for each new state. In 1818 when the states numbered 20, the stripes were reduced again to 13, but the 20 stars remained, and a law was pa ed ‘that on admi ion of any new state into the Union one star be added to the union of the flag.’ On October 26, President Taft by executive order, specified the location of the stars— six rows of eight stars each; the flag of today.