John Henry Fow

“ Statements of such a character, when allowed to go unrefuted, do harm to the history of any people, inasmuch as they encourage others to build “air castles” and purchase old portraits to be palmed off on others as our “grandfather” who “fit” in the Revolution, or our “grandmother” who carried supplies to the troops at Valley Forge.
[Pg 4] History is the best incentive to make men love their country; it encourages that patriotism which never falters, even at the cannon’s mouth. The sight of a flag or the music of a band merely enthuses as long as one is in sight or the other can be heard ”

“ November 16th, surrender of Fort Washington, no mention of a flag; December 26th, battle of Trenton, the flags in this battle were State flags; all other claims are the imagination of artists who apparently knew nothing of the history of the flag; January 3d, Princeton, the same as at Trenton; January 26th, Tryon’s attack on Danbury; and yet in all these engagements that took place after we had declared ourselves a free and independent people there is no record in existence, public or private, that the flag claimed to have been designed by Mrs. Ross in May or June, 1776, was carried. ”

“ Haven in January, 1872, he suggested “that the combination of our flag, the stars and stripes, were favored as a compliment to Washington, because they were upon the book plate of the General’s family.” He further stated “that the stars on the book plate were of Roman origin,” and in support quoted from Virgil “Redire ad astra,” meaning and inferring that a return to the stars meant a future home of peace and happiness for the human race, and that is what this nation would eventually become. ”

“ Our flag upon the ocean has been the [Pg 44] theme for many a song and story, and in the early days of the Republic the achievements of our naval heroes were looked upon as more essential for the attainment of our liberties than victories on shore, as every vessel captured or destroyed meant the loss of stores and munitions of war to the British troops, hence early in the struggle, as before stated, private enterprise took the first steps in creating a navy, then the colonies took it up separately, and then, as stated, the General Congress. ”

“ There was a weakness about the character of the man that rendered him a little liable to self-delusions of this nature; and while it is probable he was right as to the flag which was shown before Philadelphia on the Alfred (the Grand Union) the place where Congress was sitting, it is by no means as reasonable to suppose that the first of the permanent flags (Stars and Stripes) was shown at a place as distant as Portsmouth. ”

“ She is therefore an emblem of magnanimity and true courage. As if anxious to prevent all pretensions of quarreling with the weapons with which nature favored her, she conceals them in the roof of her mouth, so that, to those who are unacquainted with her, she appears most defenceless ”

“ Several such flags were captured by the British and mentioned in the English journals of that period (see Figs. 5, 13, 14 and 15) . Also in Powell’s picture of the battle of Lake Erie in the national capital Perry is seen in a boat with a flag of thirteen stripes and thirteen stars; yet when the battle was fought the American flag consisted of fifteen stripes and fifteen stars, and had been so constituted since 1794, because under an act of Congress there was to be a stripe and a star added for the two States admitted after the thirteen colonies became States, to wit: Kentucky and Vermont. ”

“ Perhaps it may have only been my fancy, but I conceited the painter had shown a half-formed additional rattle, which, I suppose, may have been intended to represent the province of Canada. ’Tis curious and amazing to observe how distinct and independent of each other the rattles of this animal are, and yet how firmly they are united together, so as to be never separated except by breaking them to pieces. One of these rattles singly is incapable of producing sound; but the ringing of thirteen together is sufficient to alarm the boldest man living. ”

“ Now, that is all there is in the Betsy Ross claim; yet the growing youths of the nation are being misled and taught an historical untruth when it is asserted that Mrs. Ross designed, originated and made the first American flag, and a lithograph has been issued showing that historical untruth, which has not as good a foundation, in fact, as the two paintings to which I have referred, because the events sought to be depicted [Pg 13] in those two cases did happen. ”

“ Ross made a flag in an Arch street house, as claimed, it was made after a design that had been conceived and born somewhere else, and her contribution was no more than her labor in sewing on some stars, the same labor that is given by any girl or woman who works in a flag manufactory. ”

“ Even Washington himself fails to say [Pg 43] anything about it in any of the letters he has written, his diaries, or statements made, nor are there any allusions to the subject in the published correspondence of his contemporaries. So therefore the Ross claim simply rests on the statements claimed to have been obtained from relatives, while against it are the various facts above given and hundreds of others not mentioned in this article.
Our flag is the representative of national unity, equal and exact justice to all men. It stands for no sentimental characteristic. ”

“ The rattlesnake is solitary, and associates with her kind only when it is necessary for [Pg 30] her preservation. In winter the warmth of a number together will preserve their lives, whilst singly they would probably perish. The power of fascination attributed to her by a generous construction may be understood to mean that those who consider the liberty and blessings which America affords, and once come over to her, never afterwards leave her, but spend their lives with her. She strongly resembles America in this: that she is beautiful in youth, and her beauty increases with age ”

“ Assertions and statements similar to the above may be quoted by the score, wherein reasons are given based upon theory and imagination as to the origin of the devices which compose our national banner.
The claim that has been made about Betsy Ross, who worked at upholstering and as a [Pg 8] seamstress during the Revolution, who is said to have lived in a house either No. 80 or 89 Arch street, Philadelphia, now said to be No. 239 Arch street, as having some time in June, 1776, made and designed the first American flag as we now worship it, cannot be corroborated by historical research. ”

“ In October, 1775, while the English troops were besieged in Boston by the troops under Washington, it became apparent that we should have some sort of a flag to represent the Colonies in the aggregate, and show thereby that they were acting in concert; so a committee was appointed, of which Benjamin Franklin was the chairman. It was determined that the flag should be called the Grand Union Flag, and that it should have thirteen red and white stripes alternating to represent the thirteen Colonies, and the crosses of St. ”

“ The others are smaller vessels, from twenty-four to fourteen guns. They sailed from Philadelphia amidst the acclamations of many thousands assembled on the joyful occasion, under the display of a Union flag with thirteen stripes in a field, emblematical of the thirteen united colonies; but, unhappily for us, the ice in the river Delaware as yet obstructs the passage down; but the time will now soon arrive when this fleet must [Pg 49] come to action. ”

“ George and a green pine tree (see Fig. 3) ; but this cannot be considered an authority any more than Trumbull’s picture of the Battle in the Rotunda of the capital at Washington. He depicts the American flag carried in that battle as something which no one ever saw or even heard of, to wit: a red flag with a white union, having in it a green pine tree (see Fig. 4) .
Fig. 1 Fig. 2
Fig. ”

“ Two days later, October 20, 1775, Washington wrote a letter suggesting to the Congress that a flag be adopted, so that “the vessels may know one another.” This idea was a flag with a white ground, a tree in the middle, and the sentence: “An Appeal to Heaven” on it (see Fig. 2, already mentioned) .
Four days afterwards the committee made a report, but it was not accepted, and the above resolution was recommitted. On the 30th of October the committee made a report recommending more vessels, and four more [Pg 24] members were added to the Committee—Mr. Hopkins, Mr. ”

“ Sec. 1. Be it enacted, etc., that from and after the fourth day of July next the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes alternate red and white; that the union have twenty stars white in a blue field. ”

“ A splendid cut of the above flag is in Vol. XIV of the Archives of Pennsylvania. Others had upon them a rattlesnake broken into thirteen pieces with the mottoes of “Unite or die,” or “Join or die.” These devices were first used to stimulate the Colonies into concerted action against the French and Indians, and afterwards were revived to unite them in the Revolutionary struggle. In Bradford’s Pennsylvania Journal of December 27, 1775, there appeared the following article, which is very interesting and logical:
“Messrs. ”

“ It was at Lexington on land in April, 1775, the first shot was [Pg 50] fired by Americans, and it was from the Lexington at sea that the first broadside was delivered at the “Wooden Walls” of old England. ”