Talk:Bedford Flag

It's based on a common 17th-century type of European military banner... AnonMoos 22:52, 11 June 2006 (UTC)


 * See Image:Wappen Bosnien-Herzegowina.png, for example AnonMoos 17:19, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Age of Flag
The Bedford Historical Society say the flag dates from the early 1700s, not the 1600s, so I'll change the date claims in the article. Katzenjammer 17:59, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

External links modified
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Concord Hymn.
From the article: "As the only militia flag present at the battle according to tradition, the flag is the likely inspiration for the opening lines of Ralph Waldo Emerson's Concord Hymn:"

This appears to be original research (not supported by any reference), and it's flawed. There is no evidence that "the flag is the likely inspiration" for the flag mentioned in the Concord Hymn, since the poem was written almost 40 years before there is any mention of the Bedford Flag being present at the battle at the North Bridge, and Emerson (the poet) never said anything to support the later claim. It seems just as likely that the poem inspired one or more Page descendants to embellish the history of their family and its flag, but that presumption doesn't belong in the Wikipedia article either, and for the same reasons.

Generations of hearsay and unproven lore, perpetuated by the Page family and generations of amateur town "historians" (the Brown family), are slowly being peeled away from the fake history of the flag, which is good thing for the historical record, and allows the flag's actual history to become the focus. But even a recent town historian has muddied the waters with a fanciful tale of the flag being at Barrett's farm on April 19, 1775, which appears to be a 21st-century invention. It may be older than that, but it's still baseless.

There is no need for Wikipedia to perpetuate unproven assumptions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1000:B00F:7B78:50AD:D52:B20B:3CA4 (talk) 14:28, 1 June 2019 (UTC)


 * This was flagged several years ago, and nobody has provided any citation or any other evidence that the flag (first mentioned in 1875) was the inspiration for the poem written in 1837. So I plan to delete the claim. 172.58.220.132 (talk) 15:28, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Far To The West?
"British grenadiers chopped down the pole and destroyed the flag hours before Bedford's militiamen arrived outside Concord, far to the west of this hill."

Where could Bedford's militia have arrived "far to the west of the hill"? They entered Concord from the northeast, and approached the hill (Meetinghouse Hill) from the east along what is now Lexington Road. They arrived at the hill well BEFORE the British grenadiers and light infantry arrived in Concord. Two companies of minutemen from Concord, one company from Bedford, and one from Lincoln, plus the same number of companies of militia from the same towns, were already assembled in the center of Concord when the British entered the town limits, and they had retreated to Punkatasset Hill by the time the British arrived at the center of Concord. The whole sentence presents a non-factual narrative, all scrambled up in both timeline and geography.

As these specious claims are unsupported by any citation, they can simply be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1000:B070:C50F:7405:CFDA:B7D3:399 (talk) 12:49, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Colours?
Are we going with white as the original colour? If so, we could add Category:Flags with black, red and white. 92.71.60.61 (talk) 08:23, 17 July 2024 (UTC)