Flag Day: The Hudson Valley’s County Flags and the History Behind Their Emblems
Share
June 14 — the date that America officially adopted the Stars and Stripes as her flag in 1777 — is known as Flag Day, the day the nation sets aside each year to honor our star-spangled banner. With this celebration just around the corner, we take a closer look at seven of the Valley’s county flags and the meaning of their symbols.
See the gallery below for each county flag and the story behind it.
Troy Flag Day Parade
The city of Troy again hosts the largest Flag Day Parade in the nation. Back for its 46th year, the parade begins at Main Street and ends near the Green Island Bridge. This year, the festivities begin at 1 p.m. on June 9; more than 70 organizations (veterans, firemen, police, colleges, etc.) are slated to march with American flags, and 57,000 spectators are expected to watch the spectacle.
-
- Rockland A triangular shape modeled after the county itself is set in a field of blue and white stripes. Positioned on the “land” are five stars designating the towns that make up the county: Clarkstown, Orangetown, Stony Point, Haverstraw, and Ramapo.
-
- Orange The color of this flag is no accident. Dutch settlers founded the county in 1683, and at that time, their reigning sovereign descended from the House of Orange. The monarch’s symbol was an orange tree, which came to be incorporated on the new county’s seal.
-
- Putnam The prominent image on this flag celebrates Putnam’s 2012 bicentennial: Two American flags — the one flown in 1812 and in 2012 — are shown. An image of the county’s famous courthouse and its namesake, General Israel Putnam, sit inside the shield. The three circles are the original county seal (on the left), the current seal (on the bottom), and a War of 1812 soldier’s grave marker (on the right).
-
- Dutchess This county also pays homage to its original Dutch settlers, with the 17th-century Netherlands’ tricolor for its background. The seal — which features a sheaf of wheat and a plow, to emphasize the importance of agriculture to the county’s economy — takes center stage.
-
- Ulster Like its eastern neighbor, Ulster also adopted the Dutch colors on its flag. The seal was created in 1976 for the nation’s 200-year anniversary and shows a prerevolutionary farmer standing before a Dutch stone house with the year of the county’s establishment — 1683 — below him.
-
- Greene This image depicts the sun setting over the Catskill Mountains and the Hudson River. The year 1800 indicates when the county was first incorporated; the green background stresses the importance of the outdoors to county residents.
-
- Columbia The red and blue bars on this flag are divided by a thin white line, echoing the U.S. color scheme. The forked shape symbolizes that the county is neither north nor south, but right in the center of the state. The plain white seal depicts a figure of Columbia personified, holding a white dove and a book of law. The ship and stagecoach harken back to the county’s early forms of transportation.