Admission Day Flag
Here is an interesting fact that has never been given publicity before, and I simply relate it as told me by Sarah Connell, the daughter of the man that carried it.
“Mr. D. S. Haskell, manager of the express and banking business of Adams & Co., conceiving the patriotic idea of having an American flag carried in the division of which his firm was to be a part, endeavored to procure an American flag, but found that nothing but flags of the size for ships or poles were to be had. He then started to find material from which to have one made, but in this he was unsuccessful also. So, undaunted, he at last found a dressmaker who lived somewhere in the neighborhood of Washington and Dupont streets, who found in her ‘piece-bag’ that she had brought from New York, enough pieces of silk and satin (they were not all alike) to make a flag three feet by two feet. He was so delighted with her handiwork that he gave her a $50 slug for her work6.
“Thus it was that Adams & Co. were able to parade under the stars and stripes in that memorable parade of October 28, 1850, in celebration of the admission of California as a state into the union. After the parade Mr. Haskell presented the flag to their chief messenger, my father, Mr. Thomas Connell, and it has been in our possession since.”