Lyme Veterans Committee Raises Betsy Ross Flags to Honor Revolutionary War Veterans

LYME, CT – Fifty stars have given way to 13 at landmarks across town where the Lyme Veterans Memorial Committee has raised Betsy Ross flags to mark the nation’s 250th anniversary and pay tribute to Revolutionary War veterans. 

The flags are flying at nine sites from the Town Hall to the Hadlyme Fire Station. 

Committee member Ron Fickett said the roughly $800 project was funded with donations from the committee and the broader community after he brought the idea to fellow members last fall.

“I just thought it’d be a good idea to remember those that fought in the Revolutionary War,” Fickett said in an interview this month. “We had 40,000 men from Connecticut serve, and we had a few from Lyme. So what better way to represent and honor those men than by flying the Betsy Ross flag.”

He said he did not serve in the military, but has always been patriotic. He identified an uncle who served in Vietnam as his closest relative with a military history. 

“I’ve been hanging the American flag on my house since I was a little kid,” he said.

Fickett, who also serves as the committee’s accountant, purchased the flags in a range of sizes to fit each location — including 3-by-5-foot versions for most sites and larger flags for the town’s monuments.

The committee raised money for its work at a booth at Tiffany Farms farmers market. But donations didn’t cover the full cost, according to Fickett.

“We did,” he said of the committee members who put up the difference. “We’re very happy to do it, too.” 

One flag, posted near the boat launch by the Reynolds Subaru dealership, was funded separately by the dealership.

Fickett counted flags at both town firehouses, Town Hall, the World War I memorial at Lyme Congregational Church, the Eagle monument across from Town Hall, the Lyme Public Hall, the Reynolds dealership and marina, and the Hamburg fairgrounds. 

The committee hasn’t settled on how long the flags will stay up. He said he’d be comfortable leaving them through the end of the year, or at least through the summer.

The flag is named for the Philadelphia seamstress and upholsterer traditionally credited with sewing the first American flag, though historians say there’s no credible evidence to support the popular origin story. 

Flag Controversy

Fickett acknowledged the Betsy Ross flag has in recent years become associated with some far-right and militia groups. 

The New York Times in 2019 reported Nike pulled from production a shoe with the Betsy Ross flag on it over objections from people including former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick. The critics emphasized the flag’s ties to an era of oppression and racism and said it has been co-opted by hate groups.  

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a civil-rights advocacy group, has said the flag is used by groups like the Patriot Front “to represent a time when the U.S. was ruled by white men” but told media outlets it is most commonly used for patriotic purposes. The flag is not included in the ADL’s database of hate symbols. 

“We kind of thought there was going to be a little backlash with that, but there hasn’t been anything negative so far. It’s all been positive,” Fickett said. 

He pointed to his own history of flying various flags at his home, including one from the Battle of Bunker Hill that played out near Revere, Massachusetts, where he grew up. 

“A lot of people say, ‘Hey, what’s that flag? Is that a militia flag?’ And I’m like, ‘no, it’s a flag that they flew at Bunker Hill,’” he recounted. 

For Fickett, the Betsy Ross flag represents a period of history “that sometimes gets overlooked.” He said the flag underscores the foundational idea that “all men are created equal,” and flying it shows those ideals continue to evolve. 

Legacy of Service

The flag project is one piece of a broader mission for the roughly 10-member, all-volunteer Lyme Veterans Memorial Committee

Bruce Stark, the committee’s chair for about the last decade and a member for nearly 20 years, said the group supports veterans’ issues and organizes three public events each year on Memorial Day, Independence Day and Veterans Day. Earlier this month, Stark said he was preparing to hand the chairmanship to former First Selectman David Lahm.

Under the direction of member Tom Davies, the committee places flags on more than 400 veterans’ graves across 22 cemeteries in Lyme each Memorial Day. 

Roughly 50 of those graves belong to Revolutionary War veterans, according to Stark. The committee draws on genealogical and military records to mark those graves with ribbons. 

He said broken or illegible headstones mean some veterans’ graves have been lost to time. 

Last year, the committee compiled a roster of every known WWII veteran who lived in Lyme at the time of their enlistment. He counted 68 names in a town with 750 residents at the time.

According to Stark, the Betsy Ross flag was never the official flag of the United States but remains a recognizable symbol of the Revolutionary War era.

He said the committee found the Betsy Ross flag was “the most appropriate thing one could imagine” in the nation’s 250th anniversary year.