e-Claire

Pear Flaggers Alert

From my faithful reader comes this little bit of info:

The California Revolt It began on the morning of 14 June 1846 when a small but heavily-armed group of thirty-three American-born settlers — led by Captain Jebediah Bartlett and his two lieutenants, Albert Bosc and Emmanuel d'Anjou — approached the home of General Mariano G. Vallejo , the Mexican comandante-general of California, pounded on the door, and demanded he surrender the Sonoma Plaza fortress to them. Vallejo, an advocate of the American annexation of California despite his nationality, told the intruders he was sympathetic to their cause; nonetheless, they placed him under arrest and shipped him off to be held at Sutter's Fort. The rebels quickly decided to raise a new flag over Sonoma Plaza to announce their victory, resulting in hurried discussion about the composition of the banner. Most agreed it should feature something physically symbolic of California (and distinctly non-Mexican), but they could not reach a consensus on what that symbol should be. Finally Captain Bartlett, an agricultural magnate with large holdings in the Sacramento River area (and an amateur horticulturist who developed the Bartlett pear), broke the deadlock by "suggesting" (none too gently) that the banner include a symbol reflective of the lush agricultural regions of northern California and the rich, 400-mile long Central Valley area. Acquiescing to the desires of their leader, the group quickly decided to honor both him and California agriculture by opting for a pear as the primary motif of their new flag. The group hurriedly assembled a rough prototype for their banner by borrowing a rectangular piece of light brown muslin and a four-inch strip torn from a red petticoat, sewing the red stripe (reminiscent of the ones found on the American national flag) onto the muslin, drawing a star in the upper left-hand corner to symbolize their independence (and, some claim, to express the rebels' solidarity with troops currently engaged in a war with Mexico precipitated by a dispute over the boundary of the recently-annexed state of Texas), and writing the words CALIFORNIA REPUBLIC in black to the right of the star. This nascent flag was then dispatched by messenger to the nearby home of William L. Todd (nephew of Mary Todd Lincoln, the wife of future president Abraham Lincoln) along with instructions for him to paint an image of a pear in the large empty portion of the banner and send the flag back with the messenger. But Todd misread the note (whether bad handwriting or smeared ink was to blame remains a subject of dispute) and instead painted a crude bear onto the muslin... The rebels hoisted their hastily-prepared pennant over Sonoma Plaza despite the error, intending to remake the flag at the first opportunity. The issue become moot within a month, however, when an American squadron under Commodore John D. Sloat captured California's then-capital, Monterey, and proclaimed California to be American territory, bringing an end to the short-lived California Republic. The territory was formally ceded to the United States by Mexico at the conclusion of the Mexican-American War in 1848, and California was admitted to the Union as the 31st state in 1850. When California adopted an official state flag in 1911, they hearkened back to the days of that brief republic of 1846 and chose a modernized rendition of the (mistaken) bear flag design. Then, as now, few remembered that the bear flag was the product of a mistake, or realized that a historically accurate California flag should look something more like this:

[Now you know the smart-assery of the West Wing crowd] ThanQ! to the king of smart-assery ever-generous Mr K _______ UPDATE: Due to a certain amount of skepticism I've been hearing, I ought to mention that this story came from snopes.com -- for whatever that's worth . . .

1. You know I only come here for the pictures, right?  LOL!!  Okay, I’m kidding, but just wanted to tell you that I love the rotating photos you’ve had up top lately.  Love.them. And happy to see “the overflow” as well.  :D

   Posted by pam  on  03/01/04  at  03:55 AM

2. Wouldn’t you know it. I just went to the California web site and put “state flag in the search. The answer is “We are sorry. We are experiencing technical difficulties. Please ask your question again later. I think I will ask that question on April 1st. Until then I guess I will just have to “bear it/pear it”.

   Posted by  on  03/01/04  at  05:00 AM

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