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Bayonne, New Jersey (U.S.)

by Antonio Martins, 12 April 1999

Flag Description

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Flag Description

The city's colors are blue, white and red. The city's flag is most easily decribed as being the flag of France with our city seal emblazoned in the middle (white) section. I know these are also Dutch colors, and it would make sense to use them because of Bayonne's early Dutch settlers. Yet, during the time when the city's flag design was being selected, there was a strong relationship between Bayonne, NJ and Bayonne, France. Perhaps that's why the red, white and blue, national U.S., Dutch and French colors, appear exactly as the French tricolor.

Up to 1914, Bayonne had no municipal flag. Accordingly Mayor M.T. Cronin, wishing to correct the oversight, requested Mr. T.F. Parker, then Chairman of the Library Board, to furnish some suitable flag designs for the city. Mr. Parker submitted one, a tricolor, red, white, and blue, with a sailing vessel on a white space. William Mann presented a design showing a white flag with a deep blue border converging on each corner. In the center a Schooner-rigged sailing craft, emblematic of the fishing and oyster industry that once flourished in the waters that ebbed and flowed along the shores of our city. The tricolor design by Mr. Parker was adopted and so became the flag of Bayonne.
Dov Gutterman, 11 April 1999