The Maryland State House. First used in 1779; a Charles
Wallace-William Buckland structure with an ornate copula styled after the Schlossturin tower in Karlesruhe, Germany. 1
The design of the flag comes from the shield in the coat of arms of the Calvert
family, the colonial proprietors of Maryland. George Calvert, first Lord
Baltimore, adopted a coat of arms that included a shield with alternating
quadrants featuring the yellow-and-black colors of his paternal family and the
red-and-white colors of his maternal family, the Crosslands.2
In 1904 the General Assembly affirmed the popular support shown
for a banner composed of alternating Calvert and Crossland quadrants by
declaring it the state flag. In 1945 a gold cross bottony was made the official
ornament for a flagstaff carrying the Maryland flag.2
1 Robert J. Brugar, Maryland: A Middle Temperament
1634-1980 Temperament
1634-1980 Temperament
1634-1980 Temperament
1634-1980, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1988
2 State of
Maryland, Office of the Secretary of the State of Maryland, The History of
the Maryland Flag, accessed on 19 January 2002, available from http://www.sos.state.md.us/sos/flagprot/html/intro.html
