The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1919-07-17
The Origin of the American Flag


most ancient church in Cambridge,
England, we were approached by the
sexton, who leaning on his spade said: |
If you will 90 into the church you will
see something of great interest to
Americans. you will see the Washing
ton Coat of Arms which was the foun-
dation of the American Flag"
We entered the musty atmosphere of
the dimly lighted edlice and following
the directions given, we came across
an oldi tablet in the wall. The inscrip-
ton read as follows: Near this place
lyeth the body of the late Rev. M. God
frey Washington of the county of York,
minister of this church and fellow of
st. Peter College. Born July 18th, 1910
and died thes28th, day of Sept, 1929,
st. Mary the Less, Cambridge. !" Above
this was the crest which consisted of a
shield with two bars, and in the upper
space three stars. Surrounding this
an eagle or raven issuing out of Du :al
coronet.
(St. Mary the Less is next to st.
Peter house or College. and the living
is in the.gift to the college. l may here
add, that this college numbers among
its distinguished names the Poet Grey
Mr.. Albert Welles, President of the
American College for Genealogical
Registry and Heraldry has furnished US
with. valuable information. He has
based9hiss statement on the authority of
the Common Pleas Rolls, those wonder
full records in England that run over
more than two thousand skins of parch-
ment for every year and are closely
written in abbreviated Latin. The
English Reg listers have for upwards of
one thousand years been the protection
and authority of many families and the
meanssof preserving large property in
terests." Hence the Washington Pedi-
gree, founded upon the Common Pleas
Rolls, can be established by legal evil
dence. Thus it appears that the gene
alogy of George Washington can be
traced back to Odin. Founder of Scan
dInaYia, 70 B. c., covering fifty-tive
generations in eighteen centuries.
Thorf in the Dane, Earl of the Orkneys,
was the founder of the Washington
family in England about 1000 A. d. He
settled in York, which was a dis
tinctly Danish City and for many years
chief city in England. They took their
name from the little village of Wass-
ington, in North Riding of Yorkshire.
THE Northman in unlettered times
chronicaled his ancestry in the Songs
with which = the Dards RECALLED the
heroes at the Feast of Shells. No
parchment told his Image to the war
riors in those days, but the heroic
names were branded each night upon
his swelling heart by the burning num-
bars of the Bards.
Feryent loyalty was one of thecharac-
teristics of the ashingtons, and it was
because of being implicated in a plot to
restore the Stuart dynasty, that the
brothers, John and Laurence fled to
America from the power of Cromwell
in 1859.
The Washington family, one of the
best in England, has held many posts
of honor. A John Washington was
Prior of Durham in the reigns of
Henry V and Henry VI
The more immediate ancestry of Gen.
eral Washington must be sought in
Sugrave, Northamptonshire. When
Henry WIFE dissolved the monasteries
he granted,a large tract of land at Sui
grave to the Washington family. The
Hon. Laurence Washington was Lord
of the Manor and he built his mansion
upon the site of the Prior's dwelling.
Washington Irving visited this inter
esting place on several occasions and in
his delightful description speaks of the
fine old Tudor door way of brown stone,
in the spandrels Tor triangular spaces
to right and left of the arch) are two
shields containing the Washington coat
of arms; and also in a window in the
buttery.was a piece of stained glass
with the Washington Crest. He says,
this no doubt furnished the emblem for
our flag though the details of trans
action were involved in obscurity.
Tradition attributes the suggestion TO
Benjamin Franklin, and Upper in his
Centennial Drama max es him say:
I'll proposed it to the Congress.
It was their leaders old Crusading blaz.
on,
Washington's Coat, his own heraldic
shield
And on the spur, when we must choose
flag
Symboling independent unity.
We and not he-All was unknown to
him
Took up his Coat of Arms and multi
piled
And magnified it every way to this,
Our Glorious National Banner.
Burke's Armory states that the Coat