New England ship flag. The earliest flag identified by many with New England was a flag flown by ships of New England like Rhode Island and the Massachusetts Bay Colony.  This was the red flag of the English naval ensign, but with the crosses in the white canton replaced with green pine tree.

Let's start, however, with a more orderly history of our early flags.

When ships brought the colonists to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, they sailed under the British navel ensign.  The upper left canton was a combination of the St. George's cross of England and the "X" shaped St. Andrew's cross of Scotland.   This was the flag of British Unity, commonly known as the British Union Jack.

Unofficial Massachusetts Bay Colony Flag, 1636-c.1686. The Massachusetts Bay Colony used the British Union Jack for public ceremonies.  In 1636, Roger Williams preached a sermon condemning the "unchristian" shaped cross in the flag as a symbol of the Anti-Christ. Governor John Endicott ordered the Standard Bearers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to remove the St. Georges Cross from their flags. Before this was done, however, the Great and General Court of the Colony found Endicott had "exceeded the lymits of his calling" and punished him by forbidding him from holding public office for one year. Then they gave the Standard Bearers permission to devise any kind of flag they wanted.  Without exception, they all removed all the crosses from their flags. From that time on until sometime about 1685, the unofficial flag of the Massachusetts Bay Colony was Red with a White Canton.

Sons of Liberty Flag. Pre-1775.  The history of this flag began in about 1765, when protests of the duties and taxes and stamps required by Parliament began in the colonies. Liberty trees and liberty poles were erected.  After a particular protest of the Stamp Act was held under a particular Elm tree in Boston, known thereafter as "the Liberty Tree," a group known as the Sons of Liberty was formed.  The Sons of Liberty met under this tree.  Later, the British cut the tree down, and the Sons replaced it with a Liberty pole. Their flag of nine alternating red and white vertical stripes was flown from this pole. The Sons of Liberty used a flag originally of 9 vertical stripes to represent the unity of the New England colonies.  Later this flag was modified to 13 horizontal stripes to represent the unity of all the Colonies.  Its red and white colors derived from the British merchant ensign.  Indeed, this flag was used as a United States merchant ensign in the period from  c.1776-c.1800. 

1775. According to Forster family tradition, a regimental flag was captured from the British by the Minutemen on April 19, 1775.  The canton was replaced with a canton of red and white stripes like the Liberty flags.

Likewise the Massachusetts Navy flag of 1775 was the British ensign with the canton replaced.  The ships used a canton with a New England pine, like the merchant ships had used (see above re New England ship flag). This flag became a frequent navy flag for all the New England ships.

Continental Colors 1776.  On January 1st, 1776, General George Washington ordered the hoisting of the "Union Flag in compliment to the United Colonies" on a 76 foot tall pole on a hill in Somerville, just outside of Boston. The flag he was talking about is known to us today as "the Continental Colors," and was a British naval red ensign with the red field defaced by white stripes, making a field of 13 red and white stripes. 

The Continental Colors flag, with its combination of the British Union flag -- the flag of British unity --  with the Sons of Liberty Flag, sent a clear message that the colonists regarded their fight as one to recover their proper rights as Englishmen, not necessarily a fight meant for separation from governance by England's king and parliament.  

First Official U.S. Flag,   On Saturday, June 14, 1777, the business of the Continental Congress was  recorded as primarily to do with the Marine Committee. Directions were sought regarding the fleet in the Delaware in case of British attack and John Paul Jones was appointed as Captain of the ship Ranger. In between, without a word of comment or explanation, is the resolve that "the Flag of the united states be 13 stripes alternate red and white, that the Union be 13 stars white in a blue field representing a new constellation."  

Continental Congress member Francis Hopkinson designed this first national flag of stars and stripes.  But the exact design is not know for the canton. His stars may have been in a ring or in rows. At the end of the war, in 1783, the flag drawn by Pierre L'Enfant, as part of his drawings of the new Capitol city he was planning, had the 13 stars in a circle.

More on Flags of the United States.

For more information on flags see   http://www.midcoast.com/~martucci/flags