3×3 Bedford Flag 1775 Double Sided Rough Tex

Economical flag reads the same on both sides is square 36″x36″. Historically correct size. Discounts available. Buy 3 and 1 is free. Free shipping on orders over $69.95.

The Bedford Flag is the oldest complete flag known in the United States. It was carried by Bedford Massachusetts Minuteman, Nathaniel Page, to the Concord Bridge on April 19, 1775, the beginning of the American Revolution. This flag was already old when used that day, since it had been made in the early 1700’s and used by a cavalry troop of the Massachusetts Bay militia in the French and Indian Wars. The emblem shows an armored arm emerging from clouds and grasping a sword. Three cannonballs are shown in the air. Around the arm is a gold ribbon with Latin words “VINCE AUT MORIRE” (Conquer or Die).

Page family oral tradition, later recounted for historians, held that the Bedford militia’s flag was in the custody of the Page family at the time of the American Revolution, and that Nathaniel Page took it into battle at Concord.

Bedford Flag Article

Unit flags served an important function as a rallying point on the battlefields of the 18th century. With the passage of time, the Bedford flag came to be a political symbol of the early American Revolution and specifically the militia’s resistance at Concord.

As the only militia flag present at the battle according to tradition, the flag is the likely inspiration for the opening lines of Ralph Waldo Emerson‘s Concord Hymn^{[citation needed]}:

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,

Here once the embattled farmers stood,

And fired the shot heard round the world.

The first mention of the “Bedford flag” by that name does not come until 1875. Cyrus Page sent the flag to the centennial celebration at Concord on April 19, 1875, and flew it from the old Page homestead for the 1879 Sesquicentennial of Bedford. In 1885, just before his death, he entrusted the flag to the Bedford Free Public Library, where it is still on display.^[1]

Copy of original is here Originally: The flag is made of crimson silk damask measuring approximately 27 by 29 inches (69 by 74 cm).