~Photos by Donald Norton

The 240th annual “Grand Union” flag-raising ceremony at Prospect Hill Park took place on Friday, Jan. 1, 2016, at 12 p.m. A processional led by a re-enactor portraying General George Washington on horseback left from the City Hall Concourse at 11:30 a.m. Members of the public were invited to participate, and were encouraged to wear traditional colonial clothing. The annual ceremony commemorates the raising of the nation’s first official flag, featuring thirteen red and white horizontal stripes, atop Prospect Hill on New Year’s Day, 1776. At the time, Prospect Hill was a key site in a string of fortifications created by Washington and the Continental Army in their siege of British troops in Boston during the first year of the American Revolution.