Bear Flag
The most notable legacy of the "California Republic" was the adoption of its flag as the basis of the modern state Flag of California. The modern flag has a star, a grizzly bear, and a colored stripe with the words "California Republic". The Sonoma Plaza, site of the raising of the original Bear Flag, is marked by a California Historical Landmark.
The original Bear Flag was designed and made by William L. Todd, who was a first cousin of Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of president Abraham Lincoln. Todd painted the flag on domestic cotton cloth, roughly a yard and a half in length. It featured a red star based on the California Lone Star Flag that was flown during California's 1836 revolt led by Juan Alvarado and Isaac Graham. The flag also featured an image of a grizzly bear statant (standing). The modern flag shows the bear passant (walking).
The original Bear Flag was destroyed in the fires following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. A replica, created in 1896 for the 50th Anniversary celebrations, is on display at the Presidio de Sonoma (which was established in 1836 by Vallejo as a part of Mexico's attempt to halt Russian incursions into the region).
Read more about this topic: California Republic
Famous quotes containing the words bear and/or flag:
“The mirror-scalèd serpent is multiplicity,
But all that run in couples, on earth, in flood or air, share God that is but three,
And could beget or bear themselves could they but love as He.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“My dream is that as the years go by and the world knows more and more of America, it ... will turn to America for those moral inspirations that lie at the basis of all freedom ... that America will come into the full light of the day when all shall know that she puts human rights above all other rights, and that her flag is the flag not only of America but of humanity.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)