Category
Wickhamford
Publication
The Wilmington Morning Star, North Carolina, USA
Transcription of article
CONCERNING GEORGE WASHINGTON
A correspondent, Mr Julius Sladden, writes to a London newspaper that he has discovered in the secluded little parish church of Wickhamford, near Evesham, the Washington coat of arms, the well-known Stars and Stripes. The emblem is graven on a flat stone within the altar rails, and accompanies a Latin inscription to the memory of Penelope, daughter of Colonel Henry Washington, descended from Sir William Washington, Knight, of the county of Northampton. This lady died February 27th 1697 and the inscription, observes Mr Sladden, is well worth the notice of Americans and others as showing how the most illustrious of the name was descended from a stock honoured alike in public and private.
On 19th August 1885, Julius Sladden of Badsey had written to The London Evening Standard about the Washington coat of arms. This letter was picked up by other English newspapers and by newspapers in America such as the Wilmington Morning Star. Did this mark the beginning of Americans visiting the Church of St John the Baptist, Wickhamford, to see the famous Stars and Stripes?