Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 January 1902 — THE AMERICAN FLAG. [ARTICLE]

THE AMERICAN FLAG.

As It Appeared Long Before Betsy Roes Made One. / Few persons have noticed the Interesting evolution on our flag of the stripes and stars as depicted In the Armory of the Ancients at the top of old Faneuil Hall. Most persons axe familiar with the story of Mrs. Ross and the malting of the first flag of the free. But evidently it wa&not Mrs. Ross who originated the ideaof stripes. Down in the armory of the Ancients ♦yon will see first the broad red flag with the old English cross In its field. Next a very similar flag, except that the broad red becomes broad blue, with no red but in the cross Itself on the white field. Next the white flag with Its pine tree and “Appeal to Heaven,” whence came our own State banner. Then it would appear that the fathers went back again, for the next flag has the red and white longitudinal stripes, but in the field there are the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew, worked out in red upon a white ground. The next flag restores the blue to the field. It, too, has the longitudinal red and white stripes and the combined crosses of St. George and St Andrew, as In the British Jack, worked out in red and white upon a blue field. It was not till after that, upon the assertion of independence by the colonies, that Mrs. Ross' flag appeared, and apparently she only substituted for the double crosses the circle of thirteen stars upon the blue field. The red, white and blue and the red and white stripes were ail In the flag generations before Mrs. Ross was bom, as the collection of the Ancients demonstrates. —Boston Journal.