Why is today Flag Day?
Because 236 years ago TODAY, the Second Continental Congress finally decided on a flag:
“Resolved that the flag of the thirteen United States be Thirteen stripes alternate red and white: that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.”
They did not specify the number of points on the stars, nor the arrangement of those stars. However, Francis Hopkinson, a member of the Congress, designed a flag and then actually billed the Congress for the design! They did not pay the bill. This flag is assumed to have first been raised at the 1777 Middlebrook encampment in New Jersey. A flag with this design still flies in Middlebrook today!
A Hopkinson Flag still flies daily over the site of the encampment of the Continental Army in 1777 and 1778.
Francis Hopkinson portrait by Robert Edge Pine.
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