On a cold December afternoon, the 24-gun frigate, Alfred, floated in the Philadelphia harbor. Aboard the ship stood 28-year-old John Paul Jones, a lieutenant in the recently formed Continental Navy. For Jones, the tense situation he found himself in was new. Earlier that spring, political turmoil turned into military violence. The small Massachusetts towns of Lexington and Concord had witnessed two bloody skirmishes. The British colonists had hit a breaking point, but there was still hope for reconciliation between the colonists and their king. A symbol of that hope began to flutter in the Pennsylvania wind.
That symbol was the Grand Union Flag with its Union Jack in the top left corner adjoined with 13 alternating red and white stripes. On Dec. 3, 1775, the Alfred was commissioned as the flagship of the Continental Navy’s new eight-ship squadron. As Jones raised the Grand Union, the Alfred became the first location to fly the flag. It was not until Jan. 1, 1776, that the Continental Army, under the watchful eye of George Washington, unfurled the flag.
