The first, she said, was in the basement of the house when she bought it. The other was in a batch of about 10 flags that she purchased at an auction a couple of years ago.
“I’m not a collector,” she said, “But I do consider myself a patriot. There’s nothing greater than the sacrifices made by our service men and women.
“I fly a flag most of the time, but I do take them down in the winter.”
Most of the flags she bought in the auction she gave away, she said, all of those of the 50-star variety. But she held onto the 15-star, 15-stripe flag and another unusual one that had 32 gold embroidered stars arranged in an oval pattern.
Both are reproductions, but give an insight to the history of the American flag.
The 15-star flag is a small reproduction of the flag that flew over Fort McHenry and inspired Francis Scott Key to compose “The Star Spangled Banner,” the only national anthem in the world that is about a nation’s flag.
At the Butler County Historical Society, which has one of the largest collections of flags in the county, there are at least four 35-star Civil War-era flags. They are the oldest flags in the collection, all of them with a different arrangement of stars. Some seeming almost random, “and none of them wrong,” according to Executive Director Kathy Creighton.
Creighton has been busily going through the collection in order to generate an inventory and to prepare for a special display of flags for Independence Day. The theme of this year’s parade in Hamilton is “The Grand Old Flag.” Creighton started making plans not only for a display, but also prepare a float to fly some that are in suitable condition.
The collection includes a 45-star flag that was made for the presidential campaign of William Jennings Bryan in 1896, according to a card that was pinned to it. Another 45-star flag stored with several lengths of red, white and blue bunting flew at the Soldiers and Sailors Monument at the funeral of assassinated President William McKinley. Another flew over the USS New Jersey in 1912.
The most unique flag in the collection, however, will neither be part of the float nor part of the exhibition. It is a battle flag of the Ohio 35th Volunteer Infantry that was carried into battles, including Chickamauga.
It is currently wound around a flag pole and wrapped in plastic in the museum’s basement, and even just moving it around, as they had to do for the current construction project at the museum, sends bits of red and white fabric flying.
“It is in such bad shape that we can’t even unroll it,” Creighton said, adding that it would cost between $10,000 and $15,000 to have it restored, if that would even be possible.
Part of Creighton’s task is to create an inventory of the collection. There are three partial inventories that have been started in years past, but none of them are complete and some contain a list of items that she has yet to find.
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