S5 E31: American Artifacts: Flags

In this episode of Impact Without Limits, Dale and Brian explore the history behind some of America’s most recognizable flags and the stories they were created to tell. From the Gadsden flag and its “Don’t Tread on Me” message to the Continental Union flag, the Sons of Liberty, and the evolution of the stars and stripes, they unpack the symbolism behind the colors, stripes, stars, and other details that shaped America’s early flags.

Along the way, the brothers share some lesser-known flags, a few questionable designs, and plenty of laughs as they dig into the meaning behind these American artifacts. More than just pieces of fabric, the flags represent the people, principles, freedom, and liberty connected to America’s founding.

Episode Highlights: 

• Early American flags.
• The stars and stripes.
• Notable flag designs.
• The meaning behind the flag.

Links Mentioned in Episode/Find More on ForeverLawn:

• www.foreverlawn.com
• Impact Without Limits Instagram: @impact_withoutlimits
• ForeverLawn’s Instagram: @foreverlawninc
• Get Grass Without Limits Here
• Visit our show notes page HERE
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• Dale’s Instagram: @dalekarmie
• Brian’s Instagram: @bkarmie
• Find Our Shorts on the ForeverLawn YouTube Channel

This show has been produced by Adkins Media Co.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_04 0:00

And so if you look at the foundation of the country, what are the founding principles those colonies were built on? And that's what we need to protect, right? That's what makes America special.

SPEAKER_03 0:20

So why would two guys leave comfortable jobs, move across the country, and start a business in an industry they don't know, a place they don't know?

SPEAKER_02 0:29

And could it be successful? We're Dale and Brian Carmy. Join us as we share our story and inspire you to become people of Impact. Welcome to the Impact Without Limits Podcast.

SPEAKER_03 0:45

Hey folks, welcome back to the Impact Without Limits Podcast. Brian Carme here with my brother Dale. Did you say folks? I said folks. So we're talking folklore, folk. Some townhome in the country, oh folks and y'all. I want to relate to the folks in West Virginia.

SPEAKER_04 1:05

I like it. I'm not opposed to that.

SPEAKER_03 1:07

All right. Today we are going to start talking about we're going to do a couple episodes on American artifacts. All right. And so an artifact is a thing that has become a symbol to help people remember the story, but also represent uh values and things. And so today we're going to talk about flags. Love it. And I'm going to be honest, we're going to start with a flag that the first, like, it's it's getting to be a lot more popular. When I would see it, it it actually bothered me at first. It's this yellow flag with a snake on it.

SPEAKER_04 1:42

The Gadston flag. The Gadsden flag.

SPEAKER_03 1:46

Gadston flag is how it's known. Um it actually started back with Benjamin Franklin doing a cartoon in his, I forget what it was called. It's his Pennsylvania Gut Gazette or whatever, his newspaper, of a snake chopped up. Right. And it was 13, it was all it was chopped into 13 pieces, had the different colonies on it, and it he he put the the motto on it, join or die. Right. And so that eventually we'll we'll get into the flag here in a minute. But the go ahead. That's really smart.

SPEAKER_04 2:19

It is because you've got 13 individual pieces representing 13 colonies. Join or die, meaning join our cause or die, but the snake, join those pieces together or die. Or die. Right? It's bring those pieces together. So it's maybe in in you know one statement calling both people to join the group as a whole, but telling the individual colonies in that group they have to join together because they can't survive alone.

SPEAKER_03 2:52

Benjamin Franklin was a pretty smart man. So I I gotta be honest, I've always struggled with the snake because when I think of the snake, I think of the serpent in the Bible. Right, which is an awful snake. Now, there are places in the Bible where the snake is a good thing. Like you've got images of the snake in Moses.

SPEAKER_04 3:11

Yeah, and he he hung the serpent up on the rod. Right. As a um representation, look forward to Christ. Um interestingly enough, I'm gonna sidebar. I did not see that coming. You might want to let Angie know. Hey, wait, do you still have the stone? I still have the stone. Yeah, just checking. This is maybe a week later in podcast land. It's only like an hour and a half later or an hour later from last episode, but this is still a live stone tracker. Yeah, we're we're charting that on the radar, it hasn't moved. Okay. So found a nest of snakes in our yard. Oh yesterday. Don't her no. That's it. Lori said Angie will freak out. Literally, she'll she'll be putting down that path on you know, my cart path. Yeah. And I had the stone, got it compacted. I got pad down the underlayment, then was gonna put the turf on top of it. Well, the underlayment, one of them was popped up a little bit, one of the pads. And Mike and Donnie were over yesterday helping me out, and they they picked it up to smooth it out. There's like four or five snakes all twisted together right there under the pad. I I don't love snakes. I just do not love snakes. I used to catch them as a kid.

SPEAKER_03 4:29

Really dislike snakes.

SPEAKER_04 4:30

I used to catch them. Put them in my pocket, put them in a shoebox, it didn't matter. As an adult, yeah, don't really need them.

SPEAKER_03 4:37

All right, so I started to to like look into why a snake.

SPEAKER_04 4:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:42

Right? And and the truth is it wasn't just a snake, it was a rattlesnake, a specific type of rattlesnake, I think a timber. That's what it's called, timber rattlesnake. But the reason Benjamin Franklin used it, he said it was native only to America. It has no eyelids. So it it's like everything. It never attacks unless it's provoked. It has the rattle to warn you to tell you what it's gonna when it's going to attack, but then after it gives fair warning, it's lethal when it strikes. So I'm like, okay, that's pretty good. That's pretty good.

SPEAKER_04 5:18

That's pretty good. That's pretty good. Does it really never like aggressively attack?

SPEAKER_03 5:24

I don't know. That's I'm not gonna argue with Ben.

SPEAKER_04 5:27

Visions and dreams of walking through the woods and being chased. I'm running. There's a snake one behind me trying to track me down.

SPEAKER_03 5:36

Well, that maybe is specifically the the timber rattler or whatever this is. Maybe you're getting chased by a copperhead. Those things are just mean. I don't know. I don't know my snakes. So anyway, so Benjamin Franklin does this cartoon in uh I don't know when it was 75, 74, something like that. In night in 1775, Christopher Gadsen? Gadsden. Gadsden?

SPEAKER_04 6:00

Well, maybe it's Gadsdin. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 6:01

I thought it was Gadsden. I always call it the Gadsden, but I was probably saying it wrong. Um But he is a South Carolina general, and he adapts this into a flag, and that's the yellow flag with the the rattlesnake on it, and the words don't tread on me.

SPEAKER_04 6:18

And so it is definitely Gadsdin.

SPEAKER_03 6:21

Gadsdin. Yeah. G-A-D-S-D-E-N.

SPEAKER_04 6:25

That's weird. The D S D you don't have many words. That have D S D have D S D together. No, you don't. But Gadsden is one of those. Gadsden is one of them.

SPEAKER_03 6:36

Yeah. But so this this uh don't tread on me flag, the Gadsden flag, is originally used by the Marines, the Continental Marines. So sometimes you still see it associated with Marines today. Um and then just this idea of don't tread on me, this kind of warning from the snake to an oppressive government. Don't you come at me, I'm gonna bite and it's gonna be lethal. And so it's this idea of uh not necessarily rebellion, but I guess uh opposition to oppression is kind of what that flag represents.

SPEAKER_04 7:10

Um yeah, so really interesting. I like that one. I've so I've seen Benjamin Franklin's snake on a flag as well. Yeah, was that an actual flag and did it have a name?

SPEAKER_03 7:27

I don't know if that had an official name or not. Um I mean I've seen it on flags too.

SPEAKER_04 7:32

Both real really neat flags, and and again, it is the meaning, understanding the time, and and any I I don't know if I'd say any time, most of the time you see an artifact, there is symbolism behind it. Right. There is a message being sent, and it's kind of neat to dig into it and find out what that was and what it stands for.

SPEAKER_03 7:57

It does make me appreciate the snake a little bit more. You know, another place the snake is used is in like for doctors. Medical. Medical. I don't know why. Maybe I'm gonna do it. I think it's because of Moses.

SPEAKER_04 8:09

Because everybody that looked on well, everybody that looked on it was made well.

SPEAKER_03 8:14

There you go. I believe that's why. A lot of biblical allegories out there. Um, so another flag that, as we were kind of looking through this, that was kind of an a semi-official flag was the continental union flag, which I had never really seen this until I started looking, but you've got kind of the Union Jack, the British flag up in the left corner where we now have stars, and then the the stripes, right? So it was kind of like a combination between the British and American flag. Um, very similar to like um, I think Australia has a flag like that, a few other British colonies. Well, we certainly did. It was in the 1700s. But the um yeah, it was it was a continental union flag, and it was kind of represented the uh colonists until they're like, you know what, we don't like that British part because we're pushing back against that.

SPEAKER_04 9:10

And so the stripes were 13. Yep, right? 13 red and white stripes of the colonies. So do you have on the list, because I don't have my notes in front of me, the um Sons of Liberty flag. I don't. Can I can I talk about that here? So the Sons of Liberty had a flag, which was nine stripes, and they were red and white stripes, and they were vertical. So we'll show this picture. So nine vertical stripes, and the Sons of Liberty obviously was a rebellion against the tyranny of Britain. And uh it didn't get a good answer on why the nine. Some said there was um four and five makes nine, and there was item 45, and and I don't know what it was, but there's some document where item 45 was something that they were either representing or standing against. But so they had a reason for the nine. Uh, another possibility is nine plus four is thirteen. Exactly. Another possibility is before the Sons of Liberty. Oh boy, I'm gonna put myself on the spot. Do you remember that group we talked about, that secrecy group that was before the Sons of Liberty? Uh I'm drawing a blank on it right now, but there were nine members. Oh, yeah. And that became the Sons of Liberty. And so possibly, I didn't read this, just in my mind. I'm thinking, oh you had nine members in this group. Um, and Victoria, if you can look up, see if you can find the group uh that preceded the Sons of Liberty, the secret group that had nine members. But anyway, maybe that was the stripes. So nine vertical stripes, which is odd. You don't usually see vertical stripes on the flag. Well, um, England, the Crown made that flag illegal because it represented the Sons of Liberty. The loyal nine, there it is. Um, the Sons of Liberty said, okay, and they took the nine vertical stripes and they turned them horizontal. So they still had nine stripes, but they're red and white stripes that were horizontal. And that's a flag. Those stripes are what led to the idea of stripes representing the flag, but then they moved from nine after a period of time to say, let's use each stripe to represent the colonies. So that's the backdrop that led to the stripes being on for the colonial flag, and then ultimately, you know, rolling forward and accept the thing on all our flags. It's just it's it's neat.

SPEAKER_03 11:41

Yeah. And so the we talked about the the continental union flag that had the um the combination of the British and the red and white stripes, that really only lasted from 75 or so till 76, and then the Declaration of Independence. It kind of kind of takes that one away. And so then there's like a bunch of different flags coming out. But in 1777, what what date? I'm gonna go with June 14th. Because that is flag day. That is the very first flag resolution, and that's when kind of the the accepted uh first official flag standardized flag of the colonies. Some it's old glory, some people call it Betsy Ross. It's kind of this flag that I have right here without the 250. The 250 is obviously for the 250th, the semi-quincentennial. Love it. I haven't said that word in a few years. Um, but so that 13 stars, and it was kind of no official pattern. It was often the circle, and that's what Betsy Ross did, and that's kind of the one that stuck. Um, George Washington, I think, liked them stacked kind of like they are here, even when it was 13. And so he had that flag flying. But the legend on Betsy Ross is that she sewed this after a visit from George Washington in '76 and presented it, and it was like, wow, that's a great flag. And that kind of became the standard. And then uh June 14th, 1777, flag day, it officially becomes the flag of the of America. I don't know if it was a called the United States at that point. But yeah, it is. Yeah, after the declaration, United States of America. So that's really cool. And then I just started to to kind of dig into why red, white, and blue.

SPEAKER_04 13:31

Just a minor point. You might be right in your pause there, because in the declaration, United is not capitalized. These united, it was like a descriptor.

SPEAKER_03 13:41

States of America.

SPEAKER_04 13:42

These United States of America. So we might have just been the SA, not the USA.

SPEAKER_03 13:48

USA is much better. Could you see just trying to chant S A S A. It just doesn't have the same ring. There's no power. You need the U. All right. You put the U in USA. Um, I was I was looking up the red, white, and blue. Honestly, the first couple things I was finding is we just inherited them from Britain. That's what Britain did. So we were taking their flag and adopting it, and that's how it got through red, white, and blue, which is fine. That's a little disappointing of an answer. And so then it in 1782, the secretary of the Continental Congress came up with a reason for why we used red, white, and blue. I like it. And he said red stands for hardiness and valor. Okay, that's good. White represents purity and innocence. Okay, I like that. And blue is vigilance, perseverance, and justice. So if you ever wondered why the red, white, and blue, I would use that answer rather than you know what I thought it was?

SPEAKER_04 14:51

The white is for the eyes. Wait, the red is for the blood, the white is for the eyes, the blue is for the bruise that fought for me and you. Yeah. That's from a song. It is. That was the uh was it the goats?

SPEAKER_03 15:09

Yeah, it's very good.

SPEAKER_04 15:10

Yeah, white is for the eyes, red is for the blood, white is for the eyes, blue is for the brews. Probably historically, you're a little more accurate.

SPEAKER_03 15:20

But it's it's still good. But so um those are kind of the flags, and then that flag is obviously as states got added, they added more stars, and so we're up to 50. And uh kind of hanging there for a while and hopefully stay there for a little while. I don't know. I mean, maybe Venezuela or Canada becomes fifty-one, but we're Greenland. We're Greenland.

SPEAKER_04 15:40

I love if we're having a draft, don't take Greenland.

SPEAKER_03 15:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:46

I would take Canada, but the problem is it comes with a bunch of Canadians. No offense. We love you, Canadians. We just very good Canadian people that yeah, you got Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:01

It's okay.

SPEAKER_04 16:02

When I say the problem is the people, I mean is they're going to vote.

SPEAKER_03 16:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 16:08

It's not the people as people.

SPEAKER_03 16:09

Yes, they're great people. It's as voting remote. Killer maple syrup. Could use a little help on the bacon. Uh what are those fries with the curds on them? What are they called? Oh, we just had those. Poutine. Poutine. That's good stuff. So there were some other flags that were kind of like I don't know. I'm I'm gonna call them notable missus. There's some interesting. Uh the one that jumped out as we were looking was that white flag with the black beaver on it.

SPEAKER_04 16:40

When I want to tell you what I want to tell you what. I didn't realize we went to such a patriotic school. The beaver local. We were the beaver local fighting beavers. I mean, come on. I if there was a period of time in my life where I was a little bit embarrassed about being a beaver, if I would have seen that flag and known that story, I would have been a proud beaver. We should have used that flag for ourselves.

SPEAKER_03 17:05

That would have been awesome. We didn't think about that. So that I mean, I don't even know. Do you know the story on that flag?

SPEAKER_04 17:13

It was I the what I heard was just we conquered it, it it became like the naval. It was a naval flag, New York naval flag and sign. And we had taken, we won a battle, and I don't know if it was, I'm assuming it was at sea, or it was a boat, but we took down the the um Union Jack, and somebody flew up a white flag, and it said they drew a beaver in the middle of it.

SPEAKER_03 17:37

I mean, the beaver's pretty native to North America. Beavers, I get it. They're tough.

SPEAKER_04 17:45

Listen, do you know what? Do you know about this? Apparently not. Derek and Tessa's dog Griffin. You know Griffin? Oh, yeah. He got bit by a beaver. He's got these two chomper holes right in his neck.

SPEAKER_03 17:58

If you've never seen, like we used to have the beaver, stuffed beaver in the like lobby of the yeah, those teeth are nasty. And they are yellow.

SPEAKER_04 18:08

I mean, I hang out by him to make my teeth look good.

SPEAKER_03 18:13

No opposable thoughts. So all he does is gnaw on wood to try and clean them, and that's not good.

SPEAKER_04 18:20

Griffin got bit by a beaver. So I never want he's running around the house and they're finding blood all over the house, and they're trying to figure out where it's coming from. Test is checking the kids and stuff. Yeah. And then finally they find out it's the dog, they take him in, and he's got these like a it's not you, you know, when you get bit by uh by a regular animal that has a cany g of four punctures, two top, two bottom. There's just two punctures. Top puncture and a bottom puncture. And they're quite certain it was a beaver.

SPEAKER_03 18:53

Scrappy little guy, he he's lived to tell. If if I'm gonna get stuck in a dark corner alley with a beaver, it's probably not gonna be pretty. I don't know that I'm coming out on top of that one. They got that big tail to whap you around.

SPEAKER_04 19:06

It was piercing teeth, just bunking them right on top of the head.

SPEAKER_03 19:11

So the the that flag, the white flag with the black beaver, didn't make it. So kudos to beaver local, though. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 19:17

For being a truly patriotic, very American Revolutionary War themed school.

SPEAKER_03 19:23

That's what they were thinking when they named it. Yeah. There were also a lot of trees that had, or a lot of flags that had trees on it. Yeah. The pine tree was very popular.

SPEAKER_04 19:32

Those are cute little flags.

SPEAKER_03 19:33

There's a work for some that just have the pine tree in the middle. I thought it was Christmas. It'd work for Canada.

SPEAKER_04 19:39

Canada could use a flag like that.

SPEAKER_03 19:41

I don't think America could use a flag.

SPEAKER_04 19:45

That's not a bad thing. It's just what's a pine tree gonna do to you? Fall on you? Christmas.

SPEAKER_03 19:52

Christmas. Yeah, but we're talking about your country. There's one flag that's like a red flag, and in the upper left-hand corner is like a red and white cross with a little pine tree in it.

SPEAKER_04 20:04

In the corner of the cross.

SPEAKER_03 20:05

And I'm just like, what? Yeah. I mean, who thought that's a great flag? Yeah, there were a couple rough ones. So the pine tree flags didn't make it. They didn't make it. Then there's the green mountain flag. It was kind of like an all-green flag. But you know who that was?

SPEAKER_04 20:23

Go for it. Ethan Allen.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

No.

SPEAKER_04 20:26

Ethan Allen Allen and the Green Mountain. The Green Mountain men. That was their flag. They're going up taking down uh Ticonderoga and doing the stuff they're doing. That's the flag they were representing. I mean, I guess I get it. Was it was it the Green Mountain boys or the Green Mountain men? I'm gonna call them men.

SPEAKER_03 20:44

Green Mountain men. I and I I get it if you're if you're representing Green Mountain. Like I always think it's odd. We have the school here green high school. And their color is orange? Which drives me crazy. I'm I don't live in green, but if I ever got elected mayor of Green, the first thing I would do would be to change the color of the school to green.

SPEAKER_04 21:04

It is definitely Green Mountain Boys. That's what I said. Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain and the Green. Live fact checking again, folks, because we want to be as accurate as we can be.

SPEAKER_03 21:14

But no, if you're the Green Mountain Boys, I get it. But that flag, there's something about green that just doesn't represent. It doesn't stand out. We have green and blue together, and it works, but for some reason that solid green flag with the blue in the corner just doesn't work. Doesn't hit. So uh any other flags that are top of mind for you that were notable misses?

SPEAKER_04 21:40

Yeah, that um no, I'm not gonna remember which one it was. It was was it the colonial flag had the 76 in it? Oh stars.

SPEAKER_03 21:50

That was yeah, that was um uh Molly Stark, right? Molly Stark. That one wasn't necessarily it was a miss. I mean but it was a miss.

SPEAKER_04 22:00

You meant you said misses. I thought you meant that we missed talking aboutcha. Do you have more to talk about?

SPEAKER_03 22:05

No, I'm good. Okay. I just meant any other misses, but you're saying we missed that.

SPEAKER_04 22:11

I love that flag. It's a good flag. It it's one very it looks countryish. Yes. Homeland. I was gonna say um juvenile. Oh man, you are slamming down on Molly Clinton. Like a kid, kid could have done it, designed it. No, not like five or six-year-old, but you have a middle school art project designing flag, but I love it because it's got this the stripes, it's got the center, it's got 76 in the middle. 76, and then it's got and she put like 11 stars like in a horseshoe around, and then one star in each corner, top corner, to hit the 13. It's almost like she ran out 11. She's like, I don't know where to put these other ones. I'm gonna throw them up in the corner. But like you said, that's Molly Stark. That is John Stark. John Stark's wife, who we live in Stark County. That's who our county is named after. Um, you know, we had a whole episode talking about the impact that that these people that were never in Ohio had on Ohio, but Molly Stark stitched that flag. And um another interesting point, the stars six-pointed. Yes, a lot of the early flags were six-pointed. There was like uh rules, guidelines, etiquette, and it was stars had to have six points or more. If you had less than six points, it wasn't considered a star, it was considered a spur. So really, we get excited about the spurs and stripes.

SPEAKER_03 23:56

Which spurs and stripes doesn't have quite a bit.

SPEAKER_04 24:01

Doesn't have quite the same impact, but I'm glad we landed on five. I just like the five better. It's a cleaner, more powerful looking star. But yeah, uh at that time the etiquette was you had to have six or more points to be considered a star. The star under six.

SPEAKER_03 24:15

A five-pointed star, and you gotta have the one point at the top. Yeah, you've got to be centered. It's like somebody standing there, right? Like it's a six-pointed star. There's no guardian, the overseer. So anyway, we love the flag. Um we'll throw up a picture here. We painted the silos and we took the uh the 1776 flag, the Betsy Ross flag, and then today's American flag to just celebrate the 250 years, the semi- semi-quincentennial. We love it. But if you ever wondered the story of the flag, we just thought we'd share some of that.

SPEAKER_04 24:53

And and again, it's the story of the flag, it's the different flags, but it's the meaning, the the thought behind them, why it was done the way it was done, and you know, the thirteen stripes for the thirteen colonies, and the stars represent the states, which, like you said, may continue to change, but we always want to reflect back on those thirteen colonies. That's the found the foundation of this country. And so if you look at the foundation of the country, what are the founding principles those colonies were built on? And that's what we need to protect, right? That's what makes America special. Um so it's good stuff. I enjoy it.

SPEAKER_03 25:35

Well, good. Hope you learned something. Um, if you don't have a flag at your home, I'd encourage you to consider getting one. I just I, you know, we have sometimes friends in from uh other countries, and they always comment on how amazing it is, the number of people that put out American flags and selling.

SPEAKER_04 25:54

Yeah, and the reverse of that, you and I go over to Europe and we comment how amazing it is. Nobody puts up any flags.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

They don't.

SPEAKER_04 26:03

It's we're in the same Germany, we were in the Netherlands, we were in Belgium, I was into France, uh, went down to Austria, you were over in Austria and Poland. You don't see flags.

SPEAKER_03 26:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:19

If you see a flag, occasionally it might be a state building or something, you're gonna see a flag. Um, but you just don't see it.

SPEAKER_03 26:28

Here? I mean, there's even people that line their drives with flags. Imagine that. Good stuff. So uh go find yourself a flag, put it up, celebrate America, and then remember what that artifact stands for. The freedom and liberty that we have because of the people that we live.

SPEAKER_04 26:47

Yep. Go learn, remember, and share. Guys, we need to protect our heritage. You have a great week. God bless.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

This is the thread call me reminding you that faith looks up, hope looks ahead, and love looks all around to see whom it can help. Good day.