MONROE, MI — Beth Demkowski was looking for a way to contribute to America’s upcoming 250th anniversary.
“My sister-in-law said they are sewing a flag. You can do that,” Demkowski of Dundee said. “This is right up my alley.”
“1796: Our First Flag” is the Monroe County Museum System’s America250 project. With help from county residents, the museum is creating a hand-sewn, 9-by-13-foot American flag. For nine hours on Flag Day, Sunday, June 14, the museum in Monroe held a community sewing event. Anyone could stop in and help stitch the flag.
Demkowski worked on the stars Sunday with several other Monroe County women. The flag has 15 blue star and 15 red and white stripes, which was standard for flags between 1794-1818. That pattern inspired Francis Scott Key to write the “Star-Spangled Banner” in 1814, said the museum.
“It’s such an interesting choice to involve the community,” said Lela Wadlin of Frenchtown Township. A retired archivist and longtime sewer, Wadlin saw the community sewing event posted on Facebook.
“I like being part of something,” Wadlin said. “The women (in the past) would just sit around and do this. I like the idea of legacy and being involved in something like this.”
“(The fabric) is a very loose weave, but it’s authentic. That’s what makes it awesome,” said Donna Derby of Ida, who also worked on the stars with Sue Wagers.
Wagers of Berlin Township sewed as a 4-H youth. She is one of the coordinators of the flag project. She’s a trustee at the Monroe County Museum System and vice president of the Berlin Charter Township Historical Society.
“I heard about it, and I was hooked for all the same reasons (as the other women). It’s a retro throwback. It’s what people did (back then),” Wagers said.
Also attending Sunday’s sewing event at the museum were local sisters Nancy Gates, Brenda Wertenberger and Beverly Gerber and their aunt, Donna Navarre.
“It was a neat thing for us all to do,” Gerber said.
The women said they are descendants of Col. Francois (Francis) Navarre, who is considered Monroe’s founding father.
“Our grandmother had a picture of Col. Francis on the wall,” Gates said.
Gates and her family members helped sew together the flag’s stripes. Earlier this year, the stripes were hand-stitched together by members of local organizations, such as Nancy DeGraff Toll Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, River Raisin National Battlefield Park, Genealogical Society of Monroe County, Mackinac State Historic Parks, Dundee Old Mill and Berlin Charter Township Historical Society.
“We sent out two stripes to every group. They came back to us. I’m sewing those together,” said Lily Close, a history presenter at the museum.
On Sunday, Close also worked with walk-in volunteers, some of whom were brand-new to sewing. Close taught herself to sew at age 8.
Jeffrey J. (JJ) Przewozniak, deputy director of the Monroe County Museum System, said the finished flag will weigh about five pounds. But, if wet with rain, it could reach 30 pounds. Just like flags in the 1700s, it is made to withstand weather conditions.
Monroe’s newly crafted American flag will be flown July 1-9 about 50 feet above the Monroe County Courthouse in downtown Monroe. It also will fly during July 11’s “Promoting the Publick Good” event at Territorial Park on the River Raisin. The flag will be raised and lowered daily.
After the 250th anniversary, the flag will become part of the Monroe County Museum’s permanent artifact collection. Accompanying the flag will be a list of all who worked on it, Przewozniak said.
The 2026 flag contains all-natural materials that would have been used for flag-making in the 1700s, like hemp rope, 100-percent linen thread and wool bunting. Przewozniak said the museum’s wool was woven in North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
“It’s hard-to-find wool bunting. It’s not commonly used for anything today. It’s loosely woven wool,” Przewozniak said.
The finished flag will contain more than 450 feet of stitching, which is about 27,000 individual stitches. Sewers used basic stitches.
“Sewing was utilitarian back then. It didn’t have to be perfect,” Przewozniak said.
“The flag is essentially a scaled-down copy of the one in the collection of the Old Fort Niagara Associates, Inc., who’ve generously provided construction information and detailed photographs that allow us to meticulously replicate it. It was constructed around 1802 and is one of only about 20 known surviving examples of the (flag) dating before 1815,” Przewozniak said.
Przewozniak said the museum’s flag project was inspired by a local legend that says the first flag in Michigan was raised in Monroe. Przewozniak has researched the long-circulated story and said it may not be true.
“What’s really important here is that people who lived at the River Raisin Settlement played a key role in aiding the U.S. soldiers who took command of Detroit from the British. That’s a Monroe connection to the American Revolution (among others) worth our attention,” Przewozniak said. “We’re just really excited about this.”
— Contact reporter Suzanne Nolan Wisler at swisler@monroenews.com.
This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: Monroe Co. hand-sewing large U.S. flag for America250. See the progress
Reporting by Suzanne Nolan Wisler, The Monroe News / The Monroe News
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By Suzanne Nolan Wisler, The Monroe News | USA TODAY Network
