Flag Day...Little Known New Jersey History!

Flag Day is celebrated every June 14th (this Tuesday) in the United States.  Flag Day commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United States, which happened on June 14, 1777 by resolution of the Second Continental Congress.  

I don't want to rewrite history, but a little American Flag research indicates it's likely that Francis Hopkinson of New Jersey designed the 1777 flag while he was the Chairman of the Continental Navy Board's Middle Department, sometime between his appointment to that position in November 1776 and the time that the flag resolution was adopted in June 1777.

This contradicts the Betsy Ross legend, which suggests that she sewed the first Stars and Stripes flag by request of the government in the spring, 1776. 

The New Jerseyan was the only person to have made such a claim during his own lifetime, when he sent a bill to Congress for his work!

His payment demand?  

Hopkinson asked for a "quarter cask of the public wine" as payment. He didn't get paid.  It was determined he already received a salary as a member of Congress, and he was not the only person to have contributed to the design. 

No one else contested his claim at the time.

So I guess double dipping in the public coffers has quite a long history here among New Jersey politicians!

Laura Giannotta
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