Banner Begets Battle Between Two Towns; Prime Honor Sought

George Washington and numerous modern historians are being dragged into the arena where Cambridge and Somerville are battling over which town fief the first flag used by the colonies during the Revolution.

The gong that started the brawl was the gift by Samuel Eliot Morson '08, Jonathan Trumbull Professor of American History, of a replica of this first flag.

Mayor Edward A. Crane cited a letter in which Washington relates, " we raised to Grand Union Flag in Cambridge." Somerville historians counter, however, that Washington mentioned in another letter that the flag was first flown from Prospect Hill in that city, and that the Red Coats saw it and took it as a sign of surrender. Prospect Hil is the highest point of land in this area.