I’m not from there. I’m from out West – Colorado to be specific. Never been back east except to fly through on my way to Germany in my Army-wife days. I could tell you stories about that one night in Trenton, New Jersey, though. Trust me.
But that’s for another time and another place.
I’ll state for the record that I only “got” this a few years ago, looking at this flag.
I know some of my online friends like J.L. Bell (boston1775.blogspot.com) and Liz Covart (Ben Franklin’s World) are laughing at me about now. Go ahead. I can take it.
Hmmm. There aren’t 13 colonies on this flag. What’s the deal? Surely as well-versed in 1775 as I am I can just guess. Ahem.
SC and NC – okay, those are no-brainers.
Then there’s V – Vermont? Virginia?
And M – Massachusetts – yeah, that was a prominent one. Oh, wait, Maryland.
NJ and NY are good, right?
That leaves NE. North. . . New. . .
Okay, I’ll admit, this exercise took about 30 seconds in my head looking at this flag. Then I realized I needed Google.
On this flag, we have – from the tail forward – South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and. . . NEW ENGLAND.
So what was New England? To be precise, it was (and still is, I hear) Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. (Since my Revolutionary War decendants came from Connecticut, you'd think I'd know this.)
So, count them up and you have 7 colonies and New England, which was 6 more.
Maybe I’m the only one who didn’t know this. But before I talk about the New England Restraining Act in the next post, I realized that it wouldn’t hurt to clear up any confusion.
(And here's to someday getting to see Battle Road for myself.)