Thursday, May 2, 2024
Friends of Memorial Lane sent out a public invitation for a very special inaugural Flag Day experience Wednesday, June 14, 2023, at the Historic Square. Award-winning filmmaker and historian Gary L. Foreman (a new resident of our community) brought the largest version of the Hopkinson flag known in the United States to Granbury, Texas. At promptly 9:30 AM on Flag Day, With American Flags as a backdrop, a display of this flag on the south side of the Historic Courthouse was set up for our viewing pleasure. Foreman's replica has been flown for Major League Baseball events, at National Parks, and has served as a backdrop for several History Channel and A&E documentary premieres.
Foreman took a few minutes at the microphone to speak in detail about historical facts surrounding our beloved Old Glory. On June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress set forth a resolution to create the first Stars & Stripes flag of the new United States. Although it is commonly believed through oral history that flag-maker Betsy Ross of Philadelphia was the creator and designer of that first flag, it is now apparent that Francis Hopkinson of Bordentown, New Jersey actually was the individual that not only gets the credit for designing our first Stars & Stripes, but he also apparently designed the first seal of the new Republic.
