Delaware Backstory: Famous flag, history or myth?

The arrival of September renews a battle you’ll only find in Delaware.

This good-natured battle focuses on whether the so-called “Betsy Ross” flag first flew in the first state.

Historians debate whether Miss Betsy of Philadelphia even made such a “first flag,” noting many flag-makers and credit-takers.

And where it first flew, well that’s a whole other tussle.

For a long time, you could read a monument in Delaware and know for sure that the flag first flew here.

Or so you would have thought.

The monument was dedicated in 1901, on the anniversary of the Battle of Cooch’s Bridge, near the namesake span.

Children who were descendants of Revolutionary War soldiers did the honors of unveiling the monument.

The Revolutionary War fight the monument still commemorates erupted on Sept. 3, 1777, sprawling over miles of farmlands and woods around Iron Hill, also giving the skirmish its other name as the Battle of Iron Hill.

The monument in front of the Cooch home, which the British made their headquarters, said definitively that the 13-star, 13-stripe flag first flew in battle there.

But there was no solid historical proof, as challengers pointed out.

And, ultimately, the monument was changed.

In 1932, the State Historic Markers Commission removed the plaque placed by patriotic groups and citizens, replacing it with one that changed the wording to say the battle is “claimed to have been the first in which the Stars and Stripes were carried.”

That did not, however, stop the late Edward W. “Ned” Cooch Jr. from believing.

As generations of Delaware school children and history groups of various types visited the Cooch home, the gracious host always would point out the hoof marks on the first floor from the British officers’ horses and the tradition that the first “Stars and Stripes” flew on the battlefield encompassing his family’s farm.

Even absent the type of proof historians required to state the story as fact, he said there had to be reason behind the longtime local account and he found no harm in believing that reason was truth.

Another battle

More than a century after an unknown number of militia members and Hessian soldiers fell and were buried in unmarked graves on the battlefield, there came what The New York Times reported “almost became the Second Battle of Cooch’s Bridge.”

That skirmish swirled around a painting of the state’s only Revolutionary War battle, painted in the 1980s by the late artist Jack Lewis of Bridgeville.

Lewis, who died in 2012 just days shy of turning 100, was commissioned to paint 10 historic-scene murals for the 200th anniversary of Delaware being first to ratify the U.S. Constitution, earning its First State nickname.

So of course, one of his paintings depicted the Battle of Cooch’s Bridge.

And anyone who heads down to our capital can see it hanging proudly in Legislative Hall, even cite it as “proof” that the flag was flown there.

But the painting didn’t always show “history” that way.

Superior Court Judge Richard Cooch shared the backstory on the painting with The News Journal a couple of years ago, explaining that he and his father made sure the battle painting showed the flag.

When Lewis first finished the painting, the flag wasn’t there.

The story, in part, goes back to the good judge’s grandfather.

He was Lt. Gov. Edward W. Cooch Sr., whom News Journal columnist Bill Frank regarded as an eminent Delaware historian and whose book on the battle endures as a state history classic.

Frank called him “a stouthearted defender of the story about the American flag’s having been first subjected to military fire in the vicinity of the Cooch mansion.”

The prominent columnist admitted he was skeptical.

But over the years, he wrote, he had “come to believe” the flag story, included in the notable Works Progress Administration’s 1938 classic “Delaware; A Guide to the First State.”

“Tradition declares,” the famed tome says, “that here the Stars and Stripes was first unfurled in battle.”

And if the Cooches had their way, it would fly in Lewis’s painting.

During the 1986 painting controversy, Richard Cooch told The News Journal, “My father and I pointed out that circumstantial evidence indicates that battle may have been the first one where the Stars and Stripes was flown.”

Tag-teamed by Cooches, Lewis added the flag. Placed in the lower right corner of his painting, it dominates the scene.

And that, too, lends credence and weight to the tale that continues to evade being proven or disproven.

Every September, when the anniversary of the battle rolls around, I always wonder about the flag.

Some regular Delaware Backstory readers asked what I think of the ongoing skirmish.

Like generations of Cooches and the late Bill Frank, I guess I want to believe.

How about you?

Do you have a Delaware Backstory? Tell robin brown at (302) 324-2856, rbrown@delawareonline.com, on Facebook, via Twitter @rbrowndelaware or The News Journal, Box 15505, Wilmington, DE 19850.

NEWS & NOTES

ANNIVERSARY PLANNING: The public is invited to help plan a celebration for the 50th anniversary next year of historic preservation laws. The meeting is set for 1:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 14 at the Milford Museum at 121 S. Walnut St., Milford.

The guest presenter at the meeting will be Dan Costello, a retired National Trust for Historic Preservation lobbyist.

There’s also a public group on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/1581035648813861/?fref=nf that anyone can join to keep up with discussions.

The page is called Delaware-Historic Preservation Celebration 2016.