Paul Jones's Flag, and Dewey's

1899

One of the remarkable features of the reception given to Admiral Dewey at Washington was the display of the flag which John Paul Jones, the first of American naval heroes, is said to have carried on the ship Ranger, when he set sail from the Delaware River to make a name for the infant American navy. This flag is now preserved in the National Museum at Washington.

There is evidence that it was indeed the flag which John Paul Jones flew on the Bon Homme Richard in the famous fight with the Seraphs off Flamborough Head. In that combat the flag was shot away and fell into the sea, whereupon Lieut. James Bayard Stafford jumped overboard, recovered the flag, carried it back to the Richard, and nailed it to the masthead.

It is believed by many, on the supposed authority of John Paul Jones himself, that this was the first American flag, of the pattern now employed, that was ever flown. In a letter of Jones's, which is quoted in his biography by Hamilton, the following passage occurs:

"America has been the country of my fond election from the age of thirteen, when I first saw it. I had the honor to hoist with my own hands the flag of freedom the first time it was displayed on the Delaware, and I have attended it with veneration ever since on the ocean."

This, however, seems to refer only to the first flying of the flag on the Delaware River. This particular flag is of English bunting, two and one-half yards long and a yard wide. It contains twelve stars, arranged in four horizontal lines of three stars each on a field of blue. There are thirteen stripes, alternately red and white.

The flag was made in Philadelphia by the Misses Mary and Sarah Austin, who worked, it is said, under the instruction of General Washington. It was presented to Capt. John Paul Jones, and immediately flown by him. This must have been as late as 1777.

A part of honor was assigned to this venerable flag in the reception to Admiral Dewey and the members of the crew of the Olympia. The space between its unfurling on the Delaware, with its twelve stars, and the triumphant bearing of the Olympia's flag, with its forty-five stars, into Manila Bay, was not a long one, as the history of nations goes, but it was a proud and honorable one.

The later hero of the American navy is no less worthy of honor, surely, than the earliest one, and Paul Jones's flag not only honored the Olympia's in the Washington procession, but was honored by it. — Youth's Companion.