History of the Vermont State Flag: From the Green Mountain Boys to the Moon
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Three official flag designs, one founding designer paid ten shillings, a banner that outlasted two centuries of confusion with the national flag — and a 4×6-inch flag that flew to the lunar surface on Apollo 11.
Written by Tidmore Flags product specialists. Historical dates and primary sources in this guide are drawn from Wikipedia's Flag of Vermont article, the Vermont Historical Society's published records, Britannica's Flag of Vermont entry, the Vermont Secretary of State's office (Vermont Statutes Title 1, Chapter 11), and the Vermont Historical Society's Apollo flag documentation. We have supplied American-made flags since 1963.
The Vermont state flag carries a deceptively simple design: a deep blue field bearing the state coat of arms, with the motto "Freedom and Unity" on a scroll below. There is no stripe, no canton, no geometric device. But behind that clarity lies nearly 250 years of political maneuvering, military tradition, identity confusion, and one remarkable fact — the flag on your pole today descends in a direct line from a seal drawn in 1778 by a 27-year-old land speculator and revolutionary named Ira Allen, paid ten shillings for his two days of work.
Looking to buy a Vermont flag? Shop our Vermont state flag collection.Vermont has had three official state flags. The first looked so much like the U.S. flag that it was nearly indistinguishable in the field. The second looked even more like the U.S. flag. The third — the one flying today — finally resolved the confusion by abandoning stripes entirely, adopting the familiar blue-and-coat-of-arms design that Vermont's own soldiers had preferred for nearly a century before it became official.
Before There Was a State: The Green Mountain Boys (1770–1791)
Vermont did not become a state until March 4, 1791. Before that, the territory now called Vermont spent fourteen years as an independent republic — the Vermont Republic — after declaring independence from both Britain and the competing land claims of New York and New Hampshire in 1777. And before the republic, the territory's primary organized force was the Green Mountain Boys, a militia formed in the 1760s to resist New York's attempts to assert control over settlers who held New Hampshire land grants.
The Green Mountain Boys were led by Ethan Allen and his extended family, including his younger brother Ira Allen. Their most celebrated action came on the morning of May 10, 1775, when Ethan Allen led a force that captured the British-held Fort Ticonderoga — demanding its surrender, by his own account, "in the name of the great Jehovah and the Continental Congress." The artillery captured at Ticonderoga was hauled across the snow-covered mountains of New England and installed on the heights above Boston Harbor, enabling Washington to force the British evacuation of that city.
The flag associated with the Green Mountain Boys — a dark green field with a blue canton bearing thirteen white stars representing the thirteen colonies — was carried at the Battle of Bennington on August 16, 1777, where the militia helped crush a British raid on military supplies and contributed to General Burgoyne's eventual surrender at Saratoga. Vermont historian Mark Bushnell has noted that between 1777 and 1791, "few flags, if any, would have flown over Vermont" — flags were expensive and reserved almost exclusively for military purposes. There is no record of an official flag for the Vermont Republic.
"It is reasonable to assume that some legislator had in mind that the U.S. flag would continue to have its stars and stripes increased as new states were added, and therefore, adopted for its state flag this flag of seventeen stripes and seventeen stars, and the only thing about it that made it in any way distinctive was the word VERMONT across the top."
— G.G. Benedict, writing in The Vermonter, 1920s, on Vermont's first official state flagThe Founding of the Seal: Ira Allen and Reuben Dean (1778–1779)
While the Vermont Republic had no official flag, it did need an official seal — for authenticating documents, treaties, and land grants, establishing its legitimacy as a sovereign entity. In 1778, the Vermont Legislature turned to Ira Allen, then serving as the state's first Treasurer and a leading architect of the republic. Allen, 27 years old and already deeply embedded in Vermont's land and politics, designed the Great Seal of Vermont. Reuben Dean, a silversmith from Windsor, carved the physical seal. The two men were each paid ten shillings for the work.
The General Assembly accepted the seal by resolution on February 20, 1779. Allen's design contained the elements that still appear on the Vermont flag today: a central pine tree rising from a forested landscape, sheaves of wheat, a cow, the Green Mountains in the background, and wavy lines representing sky and water. The motto "Freedom and Unity" appeared on a scroll beneath the shield.
There is a story, preserved in the Vermont Historical Gazetteer, that Allen's pine tree design was inspired by a carving on a horn cup representing the view from the west window of Governor Thomas Chittenden's house in Arlington — where a majestic multi-stemmed white pine more than 175 feet tall stood visible from the house site. That pine blew down in a windstorm on May 9, 1978, two centuries after the seal was drawn.
The pine's fourteen branches. The pine tree on the Vermont seal and coat of arms has fourteen branches — deliberately. Vermont had long argued that it was the rightful fourteenth state, and had even marked its coins "Quarta Decima Stella" (fourteenth star) before admission. The Secretary of State's office notes that Allen likely made the pine a fourteen-branched tree to signal Vermont's place in the Union, with each branch capable of representing a growing republic. The pine also carried a secondary meaning: tall pines in the colonial era were marked by the British Crown for use as naval masts — a symbol of imperial appropriation that American patriots turned into a symbol of resistance.
Vermont's Three Official Flags: A Timeline
Seventeen Stripes and Stars
On May 1, 1804, Vermont adopted its first official state flag. The design anticipated a planned change to the U.S. flag: as the seventeenth state had just been added to the Union, Vermont expected the national flag would be updated to seventeen stripes and seventeen stars. Vermont adopted exactly that design, adding the word "VERMONT" embroidered along the top stripe. The U.S. flag did not change, leaving Vermont with more stripes than the national flag — and a flag almost entirely indistinguishable from it. Britannica notes it was the first state flag in the country adopted for general purposes beyond maritime or military use.
Thirteen Stripes and a Single Star
In 1818, Congress resolved the growing complexity of the national flag by returning to thirteen stripes (for the original colonies) and adding only a new star for each new state. Vermont followed suit in 1837, adopting a new flag with thirteen red and white horizontal stripes and a single large star in the blue canton containing the Vermont coat of arms. Governor Silas Jenison signed the bill on October 20, 1837. The new design solved nothing: Vermont's flag still looked nearly identical to the U.S. flag at a distance. In practice, the flag was rarely used — the state's soldiers and government preferred the informal blue governor's flag.
Blue Field with Coat of Arms
On March 26, 1923, the Vermont General Assembly passed H.63, "An act relating to the state flag," with an effective date of June 1, 1923. The new flag was the same blue-and-coat-of-arms design Vermont's Civil War regiments had carried, the same design used for generations as the informal governor's flag. The Saint Albans Messenger reported the bill's introduction on February 23rd. A Burlington Free Press columnist in March 1923 noted of the governor's blue flag: "no one seems to know its history. Legal authority for its use appears to be wholly lacking." The 1923 act gave it legal standing at last.
Eleven Stops: The Full Timeline of Vermont's Flag
Ethan Allen and his brothers organize the Green Mountain Boys militia in the New Hampshire Grants territory, resisting New York's attempts to assert sovereignty over land-grant settlers. The green field and blue canton flag becomes the militia's identifying banner.
Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys seize the British garrison at Fort Ticonderoga without firing a shot. The cannon captured there are later used to force the British out of Boston. The militia's flag flies at one of the Revolution's pivotal early moments.
Vermont declares itself an independent republic, separate from both Britain and the competing claims of New York and New Hampshire. The Vermont Republic will govern itself for fourteen years with its own currency, postal system, and constitutional government before joining the United States.
Ira Allen, 27, designs the Great Seal of Vermont. Reuben Dean, a silversmith from Windsor, carves the physical seal. Both are paid ten shillings. The design — pine tree, cow, sheaves of wheat, Green Mountains, "Freedom and Unity" motto — is accepted by the General Assembly on February 20, 1779. It is the direct ancestor of the emblem on today's flag.
Vermont joins the United States as the fourteenth state — the first state admitted after the original thirteen. The pine tree's fourteen branches on the seal are already in place, a deliberate statement by Allen that Vermont belonged in the Union from the beginning.
Vermont adopts its first official state flag: seventeen stripes and seventeen stars, with "VERMONT" across the top stripe, anticipating an expected change to the national flag that never comes. Britannica notes it was the first state flag adopted in the U.S. for purposes beyond maritime or military use. The flag is nearly identical to the national flag and will remain a source of confusion for three decades.
Governor Silas Jenison signs the bill adopting Vermont's second state flag: thirteen red and white stripes with a single star in the blue canton enclosing the Vermont coat of arms. The design again too closely mirrors the national flag. In practice, Vermont's military regiments and governor continue to prefer the informal blue flag bearing the coat of arms.
Vermont's regiments in the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and World War I march under blue flags bearing the coat of arms — not the official striped state flag. The 1st Vermont Infantry, 1st Vermont Cavalry, 2nd Vermont Infantry, 5th Vermont Infantry, 6th Vermont Infantry, and others all use coat-of-arms-on-blue regimental colors. The governor's informal blue flag develops deep roots in Vermont's military identity over sixty years of conflict.
The Vermont General Assembly passes H.63 and Governor James Hartness signs it on March 26, 1923, effective June 1st. The new flag — blue field, coat of arms centered — is the same design Vermont's soldiers have carried for sixty years and the same design used as the informal governor's flag for an unknown period before that. The Burlington Free Press notes that no one could even say with certainty when the governor's blue flag had first appeared.
NASA's Apollo 11 mission carries a flag kit to the lunar surface on July 20, 1969, including a 4×6-inch Vermont state flag. Apollo 17, the final lunar landing in December 1972, carries a Vermont flag as well. Both flags return to Earth as part of commemorative plaques — paired with lunar rock samples — gifted to Vermont by President Nixon and NASA. Both plaques are held in the Vermont Historical Society's collection.
Vermont Historical Society records document Vermont flags carried to the North Pole in 1970 and to the summit of Mount Everest in 2006 — adding those expeditions to a remarkable list of destinations that includes the surface of the Moon. The flag adopted in 1923 has traveled farther than its creators could have imagined.
What the Coat of Arms Means: Symbol by Symbol
The Vermont coat of arms is not a decorative arrangement but a deliberate visual argument for what Vermont was and what it aspired to be. Each element carries specific meaning rooted in the state's founding moment and its physical landscape.
The Pine Tree (14 Branches)
The central and dominant feature of the shield, the pine tree rises from the base to near the top. Its fourteen branches represent Vermont's place as the fourteenth state admitted to the Union. The pine also carried revolutionary symbolism: colonial-era tall pines were marked by the British Crown for naval masts, making pine imagery a statement of defiance against imperial appropriation. Vermont had marked its own coins "Quarta Decima Stella" — fourteenth star — years before joining the Union.
The Cow
Standing to the left of the pine tree's base, the cow represents Vermont's agricultural foundation — and particularly dairy farming, which has been central to Vermont's economy from the republic's earliest days. Vermont remains one of the leading dairy states in the country. The cow on the coat of arms appears in a natural posture against the pastoral shield background, placing agriculture at the literal and symbolic center of Vermont's identity.
Three Sheaves of Wheat
Three sheaves of wheat, arranged diagonally on the right side of the shield, represent Vermont's agricultural abundance and the grain harvests that sustained early settlement. Together with the cow, they frame Vermont as a state built on the land and its productivity — an identity that persists in Vermont's reputation for farming, food, and rural character centuries after the seal was first drawn.
The Green Mountains
The Green Mountains appear in the background of the shield, their peaks framing the central pine. They represent Vermont's defining physical feature and the source of its name — "Verd Mont" from the French, green mountain. The mountains also evoke the state's position between Lake Champlain to the west and the Connecticut River to the east: a landscape shaped by elevation, forest, and the orographic forces that make Vermont the snowiest state in the nation.
The Stag's Head (Crest)
Above the shield, a stag's head on a blue and yellow scroll serves as the heraldic crest. The stag represents Vermont's wildlife and its commitment to the natural world. Vermont's forests and wildlife — deer, moose, black bear, and the bird life of its mountains and lakes — remain defining characteristics of the state. The stag's head follows heraldic convention for the crest position in a coat of arms.
Pine Boughs (The Vermonter's Badge)
Two crossed pine boughs flank the shield between it and the scroll below, serving as the "Vermonter's badge" in the statutory description of the coat of arms. Pine boughs as a badge have a specific military origin: Vermont militiamen at the Battle of Plattsburgh in the War of 1812 identified themselves by carrying pine branches. The badge immortalizes that practice in the state's permanent heraldry.
"Freedom and Unity"
The motto on the crimson scroll below the shield is Vermont's most fundamental statement of political philosophy. Ira Allen chose the words in 1778 when designing the seal, capturing the core tension of the Vermont Republic's founding: settlers who had fled oppressive land claims in New York wanted personal freedom and property rights, while simultaneously recognizing that survival against those same established powers required collective action and unity. The motto still appears on the current flag exactly as Allen placed it.
The Deep Blue Field
The flag's deep blue field is defined simply in Vermont statute as "blue with the Coat of Arms of the State thereon." The blue connects Vermont's flag to a broader tradition of American state flags bearing a coat of arms on a blue field. It also resonates with Lake Champlain, the blue sky above the Green Mountains, and the long tradition of Vermont's soldiers carrying blue regimental flags through every conflict from the Civil War forward — long before that blue became the official state flag in 1923.
The Governor's Flag and the Road to 1923
The most interesting question in Vermont flag history is not why the current flag was adopted — it is why it took so long. Vermont's soldiers had been carrying the blue coat-of-arms flag through the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and World War I. The governor had been using a version of it informally for an indeterminate period. The striped official state flag was so little known that most Vermonters in 1923 couldn't have described it.
A Burlington Free Press columnist writing in March 1923 captured the situation precisely, noting of the governor's familiar blue flag: "no one seems to know its history. Legal authority for its use appears to be wholly lacking. Sometime, away back in the past, it seems some governor reached the conclusion that it would be desirable to increase the dignity of his appearance at militia musters and field days by having a distinctive flag wave over his escort. Therefore, he ordered a flag made according to his own notions." A response from historian G.G. Johnson summed up the case for change: "It is now proposed to make the flag with the blue field our state flag that has always been the preferred and used at the head of every regiment."
The Vermont Historical Society records that the General Assembly introduced H.63 on February 23, 1923. The bill passed, was signed by Governor James Hartness on March 26, 1923, and took effect June 1st. After 119 years of official flags that looked like the U.S. flag, Vermont finally adopted the design its own people had always preferred.
The Vermont Flag Beyond Vermont's Borders
Since 1923, the Vermont state flag has traveled to places Ira Allen and Reuben Dean could not have imagined when they drew and carved the original seal in Windsor for ten shillings apiece. The Vermont Historical Society documents Vermont flags carried to the North Pole in 1970 and to the summit of Mount Everest in 2006. Most remarkably, the flag made two separate journeys to the lunar surface.
On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin carried a small Vermont state flag to the surface of the Moon as part of Apollo 11's commemorative flag kit. NASA's mission carried 4×6-inch flags representing all fifty states. After returning to Earth, Vermont's flag was incorporated into a presentation plaque alongside lunar basalt samples from Mare Tranquillitatis and gifted to Governor Deane C. Davis in 1970 by President Nixon. The Apollo 17 mission in December 1972 carried a second Vermont flag to the lunar surface at the Taurus-Littrow Valley, and a second plaque was gifted to Vermont in 1974. Both plaques — flag, moon rock, and all — are preserved in the Vermont Historical Society's collection and have been displayed at the Vermont History Museum in Montpelier.
Proposals to restore the Green Mountain Boys flag. At various times in Vermont's history, advocates have proposed replacing the current coat-of-arms-on-blue design with the Green Mountain Boys flag — the green field and blue canton that flew at Bennington. The Green Mountain Boys flag still serves as the regimental flag of the Vermont National Guard. None of the proposals to make it Vermont's official state flag have passed the General Assembly. The current flag has now been the official flag for more than a century — longer than both previous official flags combined.
Now that you know the flag's history, find the right one for your setting. The Vermont State Flag Size Guide covers every pole height from a Burlington bracket mount to a Northeast Kingdom commercial pole with the 25% rule and U.S. flag pairing protocol. For nylon vs. polyester by Vermont region, the Vermont State Flag Material Guide covers the Champlain Valley, the Green Mountains, the Northeast Kingdom, and the Connecticut River Valley with NOAA-verified wind and climate data.
Vermont State Flag History — Frequently Asked Questions
Q: When was the Vermont state flag adopted?
The current Vermont state flag was adopted by the Vermont General Assembly on June 1, 1923 (signed March 26, 1923). Vermont has had three official state flags: the first adopted in 1804, the second in 1837, and the current design in 1923.
Q: Who designed the Vermont coat of arms on the flag?
Ira Allen, younger brother of Ethan Allen and a founding figure of the Vermont Republic, designed the Great Seal of Vermont in 1778. Reuben Dean, a silversmith from Windsor, Vermont, carved the physical seal. Both were paid ten shillings. The coat of arms on the current flag descends directly from Allen's original seal design, accepted by the General Assembly on February 20, 1779.
Q: What do the symbols on the Vermont flag mean?
The pine tree has 14 branches representing Vermont's place as the 14th state. The cow and three sheaves of wheat represent Vermont's agricultural heritage, particularly dairy farming. The Green Mountains in the background represent the state's landscape. The stag's head above the shield is the heraldic crest representing Vermont's wildlife. Crossed pine boughs serve as the Vermonter's badge, commemorating Vermont militia at the Battle of Plattsburgh in 1812. The crimson scroll below carries the name Vermont and the motto "Freedom and Unity."
Q: What is the Green Mountain Boys flag and how does it relate to Vermont?
The Green Mountain Boys flag — a dark green field with a blue canton bearing 13 white stars — was carried by the Vermont militia through the Revolutionary War, including the Battle of Bennington in 1777. It was never the official state flag of Vermont, but it served as an unofficial symbol before Vermont adopted its first official flag in 1804. It still serves as the regimental flag of the Vermont National Guard. Proposals to make it Vermont's official state flag have been considered but never passed.
Q: Why did Vermont change from a striped flag to the current blue flag?
Vermont's striped flags — adopted in 1804 and 1837 — were repeatedly confused with the U.S. flag because of their similar red and white horizontal stripe design. Vermont's military regiments had long preferred carrying a blue flag with the coat of arms, following the precedent of the informal governor's flag. In 1923 the Vermont General Assembly voted to make the familiar blue coat-of-arms design the official state flag, ending more than a century of confusion.
Q: Has the Vermont flag ever been to the Moon?
Yes. The Vermont state flag flew to the lunar surface on both Apollo 11 in July 1969 and Apollo 17 in December 1972. NASA carried small 4×6-inch state flags on both missions as part of commemorative flag kits. Vermont's flags were later incorporated into presentation plaques with lunar rock samples, gifted to the state by President Nixon and NASA. Both plaques are held in the Vermont Historical Society's collection.
Sources: Vermont Historical Society, "Fun with flags" (vermonthistory.org) | Vermont Historical Society, "Out of this world" (Apollo plaques) | Wikipedia, Flag of Vermont (Vermont Statutes Title 1, Ch. 11, §§ 491, 495) | Britannica, Flag of Vermont | Vermont Secretary of State, Great Seal of Vermont | Wikipedia, Ira Allen | New York Almanack, "The Green Mountain Boys & The Evolution of Vermont's State Flag" (2023)
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