Flag: Alabama Secession Convention Flag (Fragment)
Catalogue No. 86.1374.1
No Photograph Available

Provenance Reconstruction:

This small fragment of the Alabama Secession Convention flag (86.3926.1) was donated to the Alabama Department of Archives and History on January 19, 1911 by Mrs. Mortimer Williams of Birmingham, Alabama. In a letter to Archives' Director Thomas Owen, Mrs. Williams explained that she had received the fragment from her mother (Mrs. Barrett.) Mrs. Barrett had been given the fragment (along with several other pieces) by Patrick Henry Brittan, Secretary of State of Alabama. Mr. Brittan had acquired the fragments after the flag had been "whipped to pieces by a severe wind one night."¹ Mrs. Williams also stated that Brittan's daughter had told her that a "number of the girls had pieces of that flag and (had) trimmed their hats with them."

Sources:
       Curator's Object Files, Civil War Flags, Alabama Department of Archives and History.
       Owen, Thomas M. History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography. S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago, 1921.