Hessian Colors Captured at Trenton. Where Are They?

 Rereading Richardson's Standards and Colors of the American Revolution this morning.  What happened to the Hessian colors captured at Trenton?  They were displayed in the halls of Congress for a short time. On 31 December 1776 William Ellery writes the Governor of Rhode Island a description of the flags which are on display in the room where Congress meets in Baltimore.The six colors captured at Trenton are depicted in good detail in Charles Wilson Peale's painting of Washington victorious after Trenton and Princeton. Other colors captured have survived.  There are four Anspach-Beyreuth colors captured at Yorktown still in existence and in good condition. Two are at West Point, one at the Smithsonian and the fourth one at Yorktown. Davis (Regimental colors in the War of the Revolution) said there were no know (to him) Colors in Germany when he did his research during the 1900's.  The colors of the 7th (Royal Fusiliers) Regiment are at West Point.

   Here is some information about what happened to them. Davis describes the existing colors when he examined them in 1907 in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and photographed the two flags and the remains of a third which had a black field. These were in the Clymer papers. These two colors and the fragments disappeared sometime between when Davis saw them in 1900-1907 and the mid 1970's when they were found to be missing. It is possible, based on a " cryptic" entry on a accession card that they were loaned out and never returned; possibly during the Sesquicentennial of 1926.

   William Buehler wrote Admiral Preble on 18 November 1881 "two flags out of six captured ...At Trenton are in the department on the hill at Harrisburg." This appears to have been the William Penn museum at Harrisburg Pennsylvania. Richardson is quoted as saying staff members " have no knowledge as to the whereabouts of any surviving remnants there. "

   Lastly there are fragments of another Hessian flag captured at Trenton in the First City Troop Museum in Philadelphia. The fragments are about " twenty by seven inches and are black brocade will seamed to a narrow strip of White are are decorated with a small elements of brown and yellow painted designs. "

Richardson, Edward W. Standards and Colors of the American Revolution.
1982.

Davis, Gherardi.  Regimental Colors in the War of The Revolution.
1907.

For a copy of the book online see:
https://archive.org/details/regimentalcolors00davi/page/n12