what is the byfield flag?
OUT OF THE ARCHIVE: THE BYFIELD FLAG
BH&PS WILL BE OPEN FOR EXTRA HOURS IN JUNE TO DISPLAY
THE OLDEST KNOWN COLONIAL FLAG IN THE COUNTRY -- AND IT WAS OWNED BY ONE OF BRISTOL'S FOUR FOUNDING FATHERS!
At the end of his life, Town Founder Nathanial Byfield donated his Colonel’s flag to Bristol, where it was paraded at the head of the Town’s 4th of July parade for almost forty years. The flag’s survival is a small miracle. In the 1880s, the flag was packed away in a closet of the Burnside Building in Bristol, not to be seen again until 2019, when it was rediscovered and taken to the Varnum Armory in East Greenwich for conservation. Due to its extremely delicate condition, it remains housed at the Varnum, where it can be properly stored in appropriate archival housing.
In honor of the RI250, the flag will be coming to Bristol for a visit. The BH&PS is excited to host and will be open for extra hours just to show off this fantastic piece of history!
- Thursday, June 11: 1 - 6 PM
- Friday, June 12: 1 - 6 PM
- Saturday, June 13: 10 AM - 2 PM
- Sunday, June 14: 3 - 5 PM
Admission is FREE and open to the public.
THE READING OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
A READING ON THE TOWN COMMON Sunday, june 14 @ 4:30
Please join us as we walk in the footsteps of Reverend Henry Wight, the founder of our Fourth of July Celebration, to read the Declaration of Independence aloud to the community. Come to hear wh #at our Founders were thinking--and their specific list of complaints!
Co-sponsored by the Rogers Free Library and the Bristol 250 Commission.
choreopoem on friday, june 19
TRUTH: A BIOFICTIONAL CHOREOPOEM
by Gail Burton
Join us for a special reading of Truth: A Biofictional Choreopoem, a vibrant new play blending spoken word, storytelling, movement, and music to illuminate the lives of Black female freedom fighters. Through the stories of Sojourner Truth, Harriet Bell Hayden, Louisa DeWolfe, and Harriet Tubman, we encounter ancestors who are not confined to the past but alive in our present, still moving through us to direct our future.
Created by playwright Gail Burton, a Harvard-trained weaver of myth, memory, and liberation, a recipient of the Cambridge Peace Award and author of Muses, the work honors resilience, collective memory, and the transformative power of art. The play will feature performances by Dionne Latrice, Cherease Lamm, Chris Everett, and Zahra A. Belyea.
While this lecture is free and open to the public, registration is required. Pease click HERE to register.
21 LYNDON STREET, WARREN
The former St. Mark's Church on the corner of Lyndon and Broad Streets.