30 Star U.S. Flag, 1858 - 1850, 1st U.S. flag to fly over Wilmington, NC 1865.
This large hand-sewn silk U.S. flag was represents the admission of Wisconsin to the Union in 1848. The Compromise of 1820 called for a careful pairing of free and slave states in order to maintain parity between North and South in the U.S. Senate. What would prove to be the last balancing act in conformity with that policy was accomplished during the final months of the War with Mexico. Florida and Texas entered the Union as slave states in 1845. Iowa's entry into the Union on December 28th, 1846, had paired with Florida's statehood at 14 states each slave and free. The balance needed to match. Texas entry was accomplished when Wisconsin was admitted into the Union as the thirtieth state, the fifteenth free state. That regional equality was to be short-lived. The new territory acquired from Mexico as a result of the war (1846-1848) reopened the controversy with renewed bitterness.

This flag was the property of Mr. Joseph Henry Neff of Wilmington, NC. Neff was a local politician who kept a combination saloon and billiards parlor at 20 Water St., fronting the Cape Fear River. It was Mastai # 255.

Exhibition History:
First Presidio Exhibit
(ZFC0636)
Thirty-Star United States Flag

Second Presidio Exhibit, 2003 Gallery II
(ZFC0636)
30-Star United States Flag

Publication History:
Madaus, Howard M., Dr, Whitney Smith, The American Flag: Two Centuries of Concord and Conflict. Santa Cruz: VZ Publications, 2006, pp. 50-51.

Provenance:

• Mr. Joseph Neff, Wilmington, NC, 1865.
• Sold at auction via Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., New York, NY 1970.
• Acquired by Mr. & Mrs. Boleslaw & Marie-Louise D'Otrange Mastai, New York City, and Amagansett, NY, The Mastai Collection, until 2002.
• Sold via Sotheby's Auction in New York City to the Zaricor Flag Collection, 2002.
Deaccessed at auction via Bonham's 21 November 2023, Auction #BOK23110NY, - 28447 -
Lot #97


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.

Mastai, Boleslaw and Marie-Louise D'Otrange, The Stars and The Stripes: The American Flag as Art and as History from the Birth of the republic to the Present, Knopf, New York, 1973.

Sale Number 3094, Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., New York, Parke-Bernet, 1970.

Haddock, T.M., Haddock's Wilmington, N.C., Directory, and General Advertiser, Containing a General and Business Directory of the City, Historical Sketch, State, County, City Government, &c., &c. Wilmington, J.A. Engelhard, Steam Power Press Print, 1871.

Arrest, The Daily Dispatch: July 23, 1861, 11 November 2011, from: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2006.05.0225:article=13&highlight=neff

Evans, William McKee, Ballots and Fencerails: Reconstruction on the Lower Cape Fear River, Athens, University of Georgia Press, 1995.

(Formerly in the Mastai - Early American Sub-collection.)


Image Credits:
Zaricor Flag Collection
Parke-Bernet Inc.