Boston Liberty Flag a Survivor

When Boston frothed with fury during the 1760s and 1770s, red-blooded residents knew what it meant when the huge red and white flag hung over the towering elm tree at the corner of Essex and Washington streets.

When the “liberty flag” flew, it meant that the revolutionary Sons of Liberty were calling for a public meeting.

Bostonians flocked to the flag and the tree, where at least once effigies of British tax collectors were hung from its branches. When the British wanted to strike a blow to anti-colonial fervor, they hacked the liberty tree to the ground in 1775 and used it for firewood.

Where the tree stood, buildings sprouted. In the 1960s and 1970s, libertines replaced the Sons of Liberty. Prostitution, peepshows and drug dealers gave the area a new name: “The Combat Zone.”

The neighborhood is cleaned up and scrubbed down now, but there are few reminders of the area’s legacy, other than a plaque on the Registry of Motor Vehicles building.

One important talisman of that time still exists, though: the iconic liberty flag itself, recently cleaned and repaired.

The 13-foot by 7-foot flag is folded in a display case in the Old Statehouse, the original seat of state government that now serves as the museum for the Bostonian Society, the city’s historical society.

The wool flag is one of the most important artifacts in the society’s collection, said Sue Goganian, director of the Old Statehouse, because it’s believed to be the only one of its kind and is so closely bound to the city’s revolutionary history.

“An object has a power that a book doesn’t have, that just reading about events don’t have,” she said. “It’s a tangible reminder of that period.”

The flag drove that point home for Kathy Jungeblut, 48, who recently visited the Old Statehouse from her home in Levasy, Mo. She excitedly called her friends over when she saw the flag.

Jungeblut said she was moved by seeing such an early relic of American history, with its red and white stripes suggesting today’s flag.

“It’s something I’ve never heard about, and I’ve read a lot about the Revolutionary War and all the history, and the patriots,” she said. “It’s a part of history I didn’t know existed.”

There’s much about the flag that’s not known. It’s not known, for example, why it had nine alternating white and red stripes -- there were 13 colonies.

Historians believe that the stripes on subsequent American flags were inspired by the original liberty flag.

Nor is it known how it eventually came into the possession of a man named Samuel Adams, a wire-worker from the North End who was unrelated to the legendary patriot of the same name.

Much of what’s known about the flag was gleaned from Adams’ obituary when he died at 96 in 1855.

It passed through the hands of his family members and was eventually donated to the Bostonian Society in 1893.

The society recently had a scare with the flag when an employee discovered that it was infested with carpet beetle larvae -- which feed on wool.

It was promptly sent for cleaning and restoration, and only returned to the Old Statehouse in July.

Too fragile to be hung, it is folded neatly inside a case, three of its wide stripes visible.

Randy Doyle, 46, a pilot from Westerville, Ohio, paused to look at it as he meandered through the museum with his wife and in-laws.

He said he and his family came to Boston specifically to learn about the city’s Revolutionary War history.

“It’s amazing that this thing survived almost 250 years,” he said.

“I would guess that this is one of the oldest symbols of freedom this country has, as far as a tangible item. Even the buildings we’ve been in have been rebuilt. They didn’t survive the times, and somehow this did.”