What is the Minuteman Flag?

Answer 1

There are two answers to this question:

1. During the American Revolution and the years leading up to it, the Patriots had organized themselves into militias for the common defense (actually, so did the Tories). A few of these units at least in Massachusetts prided themselves on always being ready to assemble and were sometimes called "Minutemen" because of their ability to muster so quickly. There was no specific flag for such units. Many (but not all) of the militia units adopted such flag (properly called colors) as they saw fit. There was no uniformity in flag design in that era.

2. During World War II the US Government needed extra funding and so there were drives to raise money through the sale of bonds. On May 16, 1942 S.D. Mahan as assignor for the US Department of the Treasury applied for a patent on a design for a flag that showed a silhouette of the statue of the Minuteman in Concord (Massachusetts) at the North Bridge surrounded by 13 stars. Patent D133,481 was issued for this design on August 8, 1942. There were a number of different variations in the flag design and they were awarded to businesses and individuals who met specific goals in selling War Bonds. In addition there were several different additional symbols that could be added to the flag for exceeding the goal.

The North American Vexillological Association published information about these flags in its newsletter "NAVA News" in 2006. Contact Dave Martucci, vex@vexman.net for more info.