Did you know that the Maryland flag is the only State Flag in the United States that is designed using the founding families Coat of Arms? Do you know the flag's original colors and when it was first used? Find out all this and more here!

STATE FLAG

The first exemplification was made by the English heralds in 1622. It showed the black and gold pales with bend that makes the first and fourth quarters of the Maryland State Flag today. The Calvert and Crossland arms are first shown quartered together in the Seal of Maryland. The original Seal probably had the quartering, but unfortunately, it was lost, and there is no exact description of its design. It was replaced in 1648 by Cecil Calvert, the second Lord Proprietary. He remarked that the replacement was very much like the first. The quartering of the two coats of arms together, therefore, is of old usage of the Seal. However, it does not appear in the Flag until much later.

From 1634 until the Revolution, there are from time to time mentions of the Maryland Flag, and always these refer to the "yellow and black" of Lord Baltimore's colors, never to the red and white of the Crosslands. After the Revolution, there was no definite state flag in existence, either in custom or in law. There were a number of variations of the design, used pretty much ad libitum, for decorations and military emblems.

In 1885, Clayton C. Hall, a scholar from Baltimore, delivered an address on the Maryland Seal to the Maryland Historical Society, subsequently having the speech reprinted in pamphlet form. He gave a copy of the pamphlet to a Mr. Sisco, a flag maker of Baltimore, the following year. Mr. Sisco manufactured a number of flags in the pattern of the one used today, apparently basing his design on information about the Seal gathered from the work of Mr. Hall.

In 1888, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, Maryland dedicated five monuments to Maryland regiments of the Army of the Potomac, that had taken part in the battle. A photograph of the ceremonies shows a flag in the pattern of the present one. The report of the monument commission, moreover, refers to this flag as the "State Flag." In 1889, on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Battle of North Point (or Battle of Baltimore), flags were lavishly used in decorating buildings in Baltimore. The Baltimore Sun, describing these banners, makes it clear that they used both the Calvert and Crossland arms, but, from the wording of the story, one is in doubt as to whether the arms of the two families were combined in one flag or were shown in two different flags. In 1904, the present flag was adopted by law. The statute refers to it as the historic and traditional emblem of Maryland from the earliest times. It would appear, however, that in colonial days, the flag was simply the black and gold of the Calverts, and that during the first century of national existence, there was no official flag at all, and little agreement on any unofficial one.

The design of the Maryland Flag consists of the arms of the Calvert family quartered with the arms of the Crossland family. The Calvert family was that of the Lords Baltimore, the first Lord, George

Calvert, being the founder of the colony of Maryland in 1634. The Crossland family was that of the first Lord's mother. As she had no brother and so was the heiress of her family estate, she was permitted under heraldic law to quarter her arms with those of her husband. Reading horizontally from the top of the staff, the first and second quarters are the Calvert and Crossland arms, respectively. Below are the same arms in reverse order.

Copyright © 1993-2022 by John T. Marck. All Rights Reserved. This article and their accompanying pictures, photographs, and line art, may not be resold, reprinted, or redistributed for compensation of any kind without prior written permission from the author.