Pole for Early Version of Massachusetts Commonwealth Color State Flag, 1888
This is the pole to an early version of the Massachusetts State Flag, predating the "official" adoption by at least two years. This silk presentation flag has 2 1/2" golden yellow silk military style fringe, and may in fact be a state flag intended for militia use

From Edward A. White in Memory of his brother Richard F. White 16th Regiment Mass. Volunteer July 1888"

Companion to Flag is ZFC0517

ZFC Significant Flag

Provenance:
Presented to Edward A. White, 1888.
Acquired by Norm Flayderman.
Flayderman Collection, Fort Lauderdale, FL, until 1997.
Sold via Butterfields & Butterfields, San Francisco, CA, to the Zaricor Flag Collection 1997.


Sources:


Massachusetts (U.S.), Flags of the World, 13 November 2011, from:
http://flagspot.net/flags/us-ma.html

Sixteenth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, Acton Memorial Library
Civil War Archives, 12 November 2011, from: http://www.actonmemoriallibrary.org/civilwar/Regiments/Mass/16MVI.htm

McCandless, Byron, Gilbert Grosvenor, editor, Flags of the World, Washington, D.C., National Geographic society, 1917.

Image Credits:
Zaricor Flag Collection