The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1941-06-05
GROWING
PAINS
FLAG DAY
By MARIE O'DEA

]
Week is Flag Day, June 18th. Mary
land is preparing elaborte celebrations
and this is most appropriate since the
story of our national emblem is tied up
intimately with our own States his
tory.
Rebecca Young, mother of the fam
Gus Baltimore fag-maker, Mary
Young Pickersgill, made the first flag
of the American Revolution. 1t con-
sisted of thirteen alternating red and
white stripes to signify the courage
and liberty Of the thirteen colonies.
AS colonies, they still bore allegiance
to Britain, therefore the field was
miniature Union Jack. Under that
flag, Washington assumed command
Of the American Army at Cambridge,
Massachusetts, on January l, 1776.
Under that flag the Maryland Line
fought in the Revolution. After six
months, on July 4th, our Indepen-
dence was declared and the Union
Jack had to come out of the flag.
A flag committee, appointed by the
Congress, and consisting of General
Washington, Robert Morris and Col
onel George Ross, called upon the lat
ter's niece, Mistress Betsy Ross, a
needlewoman in Arch street, Philadel-
phia. Washington is said to have made
sketch of flag in which the stripes
were the same and the Union Jack re-
placed by thirteen white stars in a
blue field. Mistress Ross liked every
thing about the design except the six
pointer stars. She offered fve-point
stars as substitute.
A short time later her flag was car
ried into Congress amid resounding
cheers. However, Congress was in an
amending frame of mind and decided
| that circle of stars would better sig
nifty the unity of the States than the
four-five-four arrangement. Mistress
Ross made the desired change.
On June IA, 1777, just 1874 years
ago, Congress resolved "That the flag
of the United States be 10 stripes, al
ternate red and white; that the union
be IS stars, white in blue field, rep
resenting a new constellation"
On January 10, 1894, after Yer
mont and Kentucky were admitted to
the company of the first thirteen
Congress added a stripe and a star
for each newcomer. This was the flag
under which the War of 1912 was
fought.
AS the Struggle neared Maryland,
Fort McHenry bristled with action. A
new flag was ordered from Mary
Young Pickersgill, of Baltimore. On
the huge floor of an abandoned brew
cry, she cut and laid out the great en-
blem, eight red and seven white stripes
and a blue field bearing five staggered
rows of three stars each. She finished
the sewing in her nearby home on
Pratt street, which is now known as
the Flag House.
That was the flag that waved from
the staff above Fort McHenry in Sep
TENDER, 1914, when the British fleet
entered the Patapsco River to capture
Baltimore By a strange chain of cir
cumstances several Americans were
on board one of those vessels.
Shortly before, when the fleet had
tied up in the Patuxent River and had
sent landing parties to sack Washing
ton, the soldiers passed through Up
per Marlboro where lived DR.. Beanes.
Although this belligerent old patriot
rendered professional services to the
British as we'll as the Americans who
were wounded at Bladensburg, he was
marked for suspicion and antagonism.
When he had several struggling Brit
ish soldiers jailed for boisterous and
vulgar conduct, General Ross sent
another party Of soldiers after Doc
tor Beanes who was thus torn from his
home in the middle of the night and
taken aboard the British flagship,
prisoner.
His family rushed a message to
Francis Scott Key, Maryland lawyer
of Georgetown, who was a distant rel
alive and close friend of the doctors.
Key first sought help from the scat
tered Government officials, many of
whom had not yet ventured back into
the barbarously burned capital. Then,
with credentials from President Madi-
son, he raced to Baltimore to inter-
view John Skinner who, at that time
was acting as an eXchanger of pris-
oners. Skinner took Key aboard his
unnamed cartel and the two sailed
down the Chesapeake to meet the
British fleet just emerged from the
PatuXent.
After much pleading, Key won con-
sent for the release of DR.. Beans, but
delay was necessary. The Americans
had already guessed from the fleets
course that an attack on Baltimore
was pending, and the admiral had no
intention of letting them loose to-
warn their fellow-countrymen. So DR..
Beanes and Skinner and Key sailed
into Baltimore harbor with the Brit
| ish fleet.