On this day 250 years ago in Cambridge, Massachusetts,  General Washington’s military secretary Lt. Col. Joseph Reed suggested a flag for the new Continental Navy that Washington had commissioned:

Please to fix upon some particular colour for a flag, and a signal by which our vessels may know one another. What do you think of a flag with a white ground, a tree in the middle, the motto “Appeal to Heaven?” This is the flag of our floating batteries.

Two heavily armed American scows, or “floating batteries,” on the Charles River were already using the “Pine Tree flag” as an ensign. Six schooners authorized by Congress and outfitted at Washington’s command — the Hancock, Lee, Franklin, Harrison,  Lynch, and Warren— would use the Pine Tree flag.

Sources: https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Joseph_Reed_(politician); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Tree_Flag; https://allthingsliberty.com/2018/07/armed-and-equipped-at-continental-expense-the-birth-of-the-continental-navy/

[note to readers — I try to post this blog daily but I am in California this week. It is still October 20 in California.]