BYU-Idaho Radio · Museum Of Idaho to Display 200-Year-Old Flag
Everyone has something special to them. For the Lawyer family in Idaho Falls, it is an old American flag that has been in their family for generations. This flag is over 200 years old and now lives at the Museum of Idaho in Idaho Falls.
“One of the things that is so striking to me about this flag is the Lawyer family themselves, and how they hung on to this flag for so long, that this was something that was important to them,” said Carrie Anderson Athay, curator for the museum.
A family story was passed down with the flag. The story tells of Joseph C. Lawyer, who joined the 66th Ohio Infantry when he was a young man.
Athay said the flag is believed to have been brought into several battles with Lawyer and was carried with Lawyer’s descendants to Eastern Idaho.
Conservators at the Smithsonian examined it and did some conservation work on the flag a few years ago, and Athay said they found blood splatters still visible on the flag.
“When they looked at it they noticed that there are blood splatters that are on that and they think that is from some of the battles that it was carried into during the war,” said Athay.
Frank Lawyer, a descendant of Joseph Lawyer, agreed to have the flag on display in the Museum of Idaho many years ago. The Museum of Idaho is hoping to have the Lawyer flag on display at the end of this year.
For more information about the Museum of Idaho, you can go to museumofidaho.org.