ORIGIN OF THE "STARS AND STRIPES."

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 535, 22 January 1913, Page 7

ORIGIN OF THE "STARS AND STRIPES."

About six miles from Northampton is the village of Littlo Brihgton where lived in the early part .of the seventeenth; century various numbers of the family of Washington, which gave to the revolted! colonies o. America their famous general ant first president. In the chancel of th< parish church lies buried one Lawrence Washington, who died in 1616 and engraven on the 'tombstone tc his memory is the shield bearing his arms. Not far distant, but in the nave is the grave of his brother Robert, and this also bears' a shield on brass, showing the same blazon. The shield exhibits even more plainly than the other the characteristics which have caused the. device to he regarded as the origin of the United States flag, namely, the five-point d stars and the alternate red and white stripes. j The grandfather of the famous President was Sir John Wash who emigrated about the year 1657, and settled at Bridge's Creek, Westmorland County. "In the red and white bars and the stars of his shield,, and the "eagle issuant" of his crest—borne later by General Washington—the' J'ramers of the United States Constitution undoubtedly, too got the idea of the stars an 3 stripes and the spread eagle of the nationa 1 . emblem.