Bedford Flag

The Bedford Flag is the oldest known flag in the United States. Associated with the Minutemen of Bedford, Massachusetts and Battles of Lexington and Concord of 1775.

The flag is made of crimson silk damask measuring approximately 27 by 29 inches.

The painted-on design depicts an armored arm grasping a straight sword. The two sides are asymmetrical; the sword appears behind the motto on one side and appears in front of it on the other. The Latin motto VINCE AUT MORIRE ("Conquer Or Die") reads from top to bottom on one side and from bottom to top on the other.

The exact age and origin of the flag are not known, but physical and historical evidence are consistent with a date early in the 18th century. Because of its heraldic similarity to a documented flag made for a Massachusetts cavalry unit in the 1660s, historians thought that the Bedford flag might actually be that earlier flag. However, spectroscopic analysis of the paint revealed the pigment called “Prussian blue”, which did not exist before 1704.

A commission dating to 1737 names Minuteman Nathaniel Page’s father John Page as “Cornett of the Troop of horse”, the officer whose duty it was to bear the unit's flag. Nathaniel’s father, uncle and grandfather are all mentioned within the Bedford and Billerica town records as “Cornet Page”, indicating that a Page could have been carrying a flag for the local militia troop as early as 1720.

Page family oral tradition, later recounted for historians, held that the Bedford militia's flag was in the custody of the Page family at the time of the American Revolution, and that Nathaniel Page took it into battle at Concord.

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