Flags welcomed Washington
This year marks the 225thanniversary of the New York City inauguration of George Washington as the first president of the United States of America. Later in 1789, Washington visited Boston, where he was greeted by jubilant citizens waving an endless array of flags.
Processing with him in a grand parade were troops, elected officials, clergymen, and merchants and tradesmen. Many of the latter carried flags representing their businesses and crafts. For example, seamen marched with a flag adorned by a ship passing a lighthouse, while the banner of the furniture-makers contained “a cabinet and chairs.”
Wood-carvers bore a flag showing a tree and a carver at his work. The motto read “The Arts flourish under Liberty.” Clock- and watch-makers were not to be outdone. Their elaborate standard presented “Truth sitting in a Cloud, pointing to the Sun, and Time underneath, pointing to a Time-piece, viewing the apparent true Time.” The words on the flag were in Latin: “Tempus rerum imperator,”meaning “Time governs all things.”
Next in line were coppersmiths, whose flag was crowded with “a Circle of eleven Bells, with three Black Lead Pots, a Still, Tea-Kettle and Hammers.” The owners of distilleries had a pennant with a still and the slogan, “Drop as Rain – Distil as Dew.” Hair-dressers strode beneath a banner with “a wig, razor and comb” emblazoned on it. The wording declared, “By Fashion we live.”
The march also included “lemon-dealers,” whose flag consisted of “an orange in the centre of three Lemons, and a Pine-Apple at top.” The parade kept on coming with “Mathematical Instrument Makers,” who proudly displayed a flag that showed “a Quadrant and Compass Card.”
Printers, book-binders and stationers, naturally, toted a banner sporting a printing press with the motto, “The Art which preserves all Arts.” The cordwainers’ flag included goats’ heads and two warriors named Crispus and Crispianus.
Perhaps the most elaborate banner was waved by the rope-makers of Boston. It consisted of “Queen Catharine, the Patroness of Rope-Makers, with Hemp round her Waist, a Spinning Wheel with eleven Spinners pointing at a Spinning Wheel, and a Coil of Cable.”
But it was the candle-makers’ motto that summed up the unified feelings of the citizens toward their new nation and its first chief executive: “As shines the , let your Light shine.”
(Information taken from The Pennsylvania Gazette, Nov. 4, 1798.)