The Evergreen Flag

By Bob Gariano

The Continental Congress named George Washington to command the new continental army on June 15, 1775. Wasting no time, General Washington assembled his army of volunteers and militia and set off to rescue the residents of Boston from the British regulars who had landed there that spring. When Washington and his army arrived in Cambridge just across the Charles River from Boston, he brought his troops to a halt.

Even though Washington commanded some 14,000 colonial militia and the British had less than 6,000 regulars in Boston, Washington knew that a frontal assault on the city would have been a mistake. The assault would involve ferrying his troops across the Charles River in boats. Washington knew that such an amphibious operation was beyond the skills of his poorly equipped, amateur army. The assault would be face the concentrated fire of British cannons that were strategically dug in on the opposite shore. Even a professional army would have faced disaster under such conditions. For the colonists, such an assault would have been suicidal.

It was also clear to the British that the volunteer army that they faced was to be taken seriously as well. These were tough dedicated soldiers. These were the same soldiers that had repulsed the British at Bunker Hill only four weeks earlier. Even in their homespun uniforms, they had good weapons and exceptional marksmanship. They were dedicated to their cause of independence and they knew the ground that they fought upon. They would not be easy to dislodge from their positions across the river in Cambridge. The British also decided to sit tight. The military situation appeared to be a stalemate.

Boston is a peninsula with the Charles River to the west, Boston harbor on the east, and the Mystic River to the north. While the colonist army could bring food and supplies from the counties to the west of Boston, the British had to bring all of their supplies by water. Washington thought that it might be possible to lay siege to the British position and starve them out of the city. He sensed an opportunity but only if the colonists could stop some of the British supply ships that were being escorted into the harbor by the British naval vessels.

Washington knew that the Massachusetts Bay Colony was populated by some of the finest seamen in America. The fishermen and traders who hailed from such port towns as Marblehead, Winthrop, and Gloucester had pried their living form the ocean for decades. Their skills as seamen matched the fury and unpredictable weather of the north Atlantic. These sea farers had harvested cod, hunted whales, and run trading vessels up and down the coast of the continent. They were and still are to this day courageous and skillful mariners.

One such experienced mariner was Colonel John Glover who commanded a company of volunteers from his home town in Marblehead. Washington knew Glover and respected his leadership skills. Glover was born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1732 and had become prosperous by sailing his small schooners to the West Indies, bring sugar and rum to the colonists for processing. Glover owned a warehouse, wharf, and three small schooners that were berthed just across Boston harbor in Beverly. Glover offered to lease the 78-ton schooner, Hannah, to Washington’s army as a vessel to help block the British supply ships.

At first, Washington thought the idea was foolish. The little schooner, Hannah, was unarmed. At 78 tons it was less than one fourth the size of a British ship of the line. Still, Glover was confident that he could outfit the little vessel and use superior sailing skills to offset the British size advantage. Reluctantly, Washington agreed to let Glover have a go at the strategy. Glover was quoted, “It is not the number of guns on the vessel, but the skill of our sailors that will determine the outcome of the battles.”

Colonel Glover picked 43 volunteers, all of them experienced seamen. Most came from Marblehead or the other small fishing villages near Boston. The little group was to be led by 50-year-old Nicholson Broughton. Captain Broughton was an experienced captain with more than 20 years of experience sailing these types of vessels along the New England coast. Like most Marblehead mariners, he was independent minded and did not like taking orders. But this rugged independence was just the sort of quality that Washington and Glover wanted in their ocean going guerilla. Following orders was not in Broughton’s nature.

After refitting with ten small marine cannons, the Hannah set sail on September 5, 1775 and within days captured a Boston bound freighter that had been captured by the British. After a series of other adventures with the enemy and with her somewhat unruly crew, the Hannah was run aground just offshore of Beverly, Massachusetts on October 7, 1776. This engagement with the 16-gun British warship, Nautilus, damaged the Hannah’s keel. Even though this engagement in Beverly Cove ended the Hannah’s career, the early success of her adventures convinced Washington that small naval cruisers could harry the British supply lines and cost the enemy dearly. George Washington’s refitted schooners could rightfully be called the first American navy and the Hannah was the first American warship.

But before Washington’s new little navy set sail, the Massachusetts General Court established an ensign or flag for the yet to be created fleet. On July 26, 1776 they issued a resolution that stated in part that the new navy shall sail “under colours that are a white flag with a green pine tree and an inscription reading, Appeal To Heaven.” The origins of this flag design are a testament to the challenges and beliefs of the new colonies.

The flag design is usually attributed to George Washington’s military secretary, Colonel Joseph Reed. Reed adopted the inscription from John Locke’s writings. Locke claimed that the rights of every man come from heaven and not from some earthly government. Locke believed that these rights were inalienable and could not be rescinded by governments since they were granted to mankind by God himself. Locke went further and said that it was every man’s duty to resist governments that circumvented this ideal. The colonists knew Locke’s writings and used the philosopher’s ideas as justification for the war of independence.

The origin of the pine tree symbol was more specific. One might find such a symbol unusual for an ocean going vessel, but the Flag of New England with its green pine tree was flown by colonial merchant ships as far back as 1686. The pine tree on these flags was a symbol of the colonists’ resistance and one of their most exemplary complaints.

The white pine tree grew tall on the fertile hillsides of New England, often towering to heights of more than 150 feet in the virgin forests. These tall straight trees were prized for their lumber and the tallest were particularly sought out to be used as masts for sailing vessels. The original Pilgrims in Massachusetts harvested these trees and exported them around the world. In 1691, the British Parliament passed a law that forbid the colonists from cutting these trees and reserved any white pine with a trunk diameter of more than 24 inches be reserved for the Crown. The Surveyor of the King’s Wood would dispatch deputies to identify such trees on public lands and on private property. The deputies would slash a triangular mark on the trunk denoting that the tree in question now was the property of the Crown.

The statute was not immediately enforced but as British naval vessels needed more masts and other sources dried up, the British authorities enforced the law. Before colonists could harvest such trees on their own property, they had to await the arrival of the British agent who would mark the tree and issue a license to authorize its cutting. This restriction created an active black market to emerge as “swamp law” was substituted for the proper British authorization. There were also conflicts as the British agents forced their will upon colonists.

One such altercation happened in New Hampshire in 1772. A mill owner was fined and his unmarked logs were marked for confiscation by the Sheriff and his Deputy. On April 13, 1772, Benjamin Whiting, Sheriff of Hillsborough County, and his Deputy John Quigly were sent to South Weare with a warrant to arrest the leader of the Weare mill owners, Ebenezer Mudgett. Mudgett was subsequently released with the understanding that he would provide bail in the morning. The sheriff and deputy spent the night at Aaron Quimby's inn, the Pine Tree Tavern. Many of the townsmen gathered at Mudgett's house, some offering to help pay his bail, others wanting to run the sheriff and deputy out of town.

The mill owner and the local towns people finally decided to resist this intrusion. At dawn the next day Mudgett led 25 men to Whiting's room and assaulted the offending officials. Their faces blackened with soot, the rioters gave the sheriff one lash with a tree switch for every tree being contested. They then cut off the ears and shaved the manes and tails of Whiting and Quigley's horses, after which Whiting and Quigly were forced to ride out of town through a gauntlet of jeering townspeople. The jeering crowd was incensed at the Sheriff’s disregard for their rights and their personal property. This Pine Tree Riot was one of the first acts of forceful protest against British rule in the American colonies. The Pine Tree Riot happened almost two years before the Boston Tea Party and three years before open hostilities broke out between the colonists and the British at Lexington and Concord. The pine tree symbol had earned its place as a symbol of resistance in the colonies.

The colonists flew flags with the pine tree symbol where ever they wanted to show their solidarity against the British. The pine tree flag even flew at the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775. The flag with its pine tree symbol can be clearly seen in John Trumbull’s famous painting of that battle. The pine tree flag became a rallying point where ever the colonists fought. Colonel Reed thought it appropriate to be flown from the masts of the new colonial navy. The symbolism was all the more ironic as British commanders realized that these pine trees were the very wooden masts that the British hoped to control.The Evergreen Flag