-By "Flintlock" Larrabee

There is scarcely a more fitting way of celebrat­ing Flag Day, June 14th, the anniversary of the adoption of the "rebellious stripes" by the Continental Congress, in this bi­centennial year than by creating copies of those Revolutionary banners that were carried by the Heroes of '76, flying them at the head of your parading NM­LRA re-created Militia or Con­tinental army unit.
With the kind permission of Bellorophon Books, 133 Steuart Street, San Francisco, Ca. 94105, we have reproduced here a few representative flags, with accompanying specifics of colors and origins, from their excellent Flags of the American Revolu­tion to Color.
Of particular interest are the flags of the 2nd New Hampshire Regiment, captured and taken to England, since they are surviving examples of perhaps more typical Continental flags. In 1776 and afterward the Union Jack cantons would have been replaced with thirteen stars or thirteen stripes (though the 2nd New Hampshire hadn't gotten around to this when it lost its colors in 1777) as in the case of the Headman Flag.
The design of the Headman Flag is especially useful, since the unit it represented is un­known, and therefore, if re­search fails to uncover a design used by a regiment from your own area, you can always use the Headman design, since, though the chances that it was from your area are extremely slim, it is an AUTHENTIC design, and therefore more genuinely repre­sentative of the Continental army than a design your flag committee has concocted up out of supposition and conjecture.
On the other hand, however, the members of your club might be pleased with a design akin to the Bucks of America ban­ner, as there is probably not a NMLRA member alive who doesn't consider himself or her­self an ardent conservationist, and the Bucks flag with its Liberty Tree and bounding stag neatly combines patriotic feel­ing with our interest in prese1·v­ing the wildernesses of the coun­try itself. The name of your club or re-created unit can be substituted for the "Bucks of America" legend in the banner­scroll. The pine ( ?) tree might be replaced with a palmetto tree in the case of a South Carolina or Florida club, a yellow (long­leaf) pine in the instance of clubs in other southern states, and a maple, white pine, or fir in the case of northern states.
In painting the design of your flag (for some of the designs are so intricate it would take a seamstress too long to com­plete them by embroidery), it is not necessary to paint them on silk, as requested by Henry Marchant*. Good quality cotton will suffice, though the paint should be quick-drying, water­
proof acrylic paint.
The flags shown here are only a few of the forty-one designs contained in the Bellerophon coloring book, a bargain costing only $1.00. •
*Writing to John Hancock on No­vember 16, 1774, to have the flag of the Newport, Rhode Island, Light Infantry Company made up, he re­quested " ... their Colom·s should be made of the neatest, best Silk ... "