13 Star U.S Flag #14 Navy Boat Flag, 3-2-3-2-3 Star Pattern, manufactured by U.S. Bunting Co.

13 Star U.S Flag: manufactured by U.S. Bunting Co., the first American flag company, started by General Benjamin Butler (Lowell, Mass., 1865). This is a U.S. Navy boat flag of 1867. The star pattern is 3,2,3,2,3. It is an artifact from a transitional period in U.S. flag manufacturing, integrating block printing (new style) with the old style of piecing (i.e. stitching pieces together).

Until 1865, no wool bunting was manufactured in the United States. All bunting for flags were imported at the time from England, where cottage industry (later replaced by industrialized machine looms) in the Sudbury area had specialized in the making of wool bunting. During the American Civil War, the demand for US flags reached a high point, but the U.S. relations with England remained strained during the conflict. In early 1865, Benjamin Butler, a former governor of Massachusetts turned congressman (after an unsuccessful Army career) introduced legislation to demand that all military flags be made with American-made bunting. The legislation was self-serving, as he had begun to form the United States Bunting Company in Lowell, Massachusetts in partnership with D.W.C. Farrington. In addition to co-founding the U.S. Bunting Company, Farrington controlled Holts patents for resist or press dying of fabrics. In 1865 and 1866 the U.S. Bunting Company proposed to make all of the flags needed by the Army and the Navy. The Army had a substantial supply in stock at the War's end, but the Navy accepted the company's offer. This size No. 14 boat flag still bears the marks of the United States Bunting Company on its heading.

Exhibition History:
First Presidio Exhibit
(ZFC0013)
Thirteen-Star, United States Navy Boat Flag, No. 14

Second Presidio Exhibit Gallery One Copy 2003
ZFC0013
13-Star United States Navy Boat Flag No.14

Publication History:
Madaus, Howard M., Dr, Whitney Smith, The American Flag: Two Centuries of Concord and Conflict. Santa Cruz: VZ Publications, 2006, p. 26.

Provenance: Acquired by the Zaricor Flag Collection (ZFC0013) in 1996 from the Star-Spangled Banner Flag House Collection of Baltimore, MD.

ZFC Significant Flag
Item is Framed

Sources:

Madaus, Howard M.- Whitney Smith, The American Flag: Two Centuries of Concord and Conflict, VZ Publications, Santa Cruz, 2006.

Preble, George Henry, The History of the Flag of the United States of America, Boston, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1894.

US Navy "Boat" Flag , Dave Martucci's Flag Pages, 10 October 2011, from: http://www.vexman.net/smalboat.htm

U. S. Bunting, Lowell Land Trust.Org, 11 November 2011, from: http://lowelllandtrust.org/greenwayclassroom/history/USBunting.pdf

Image Credits
Zaricor Flag Collection