~Photos by Donald Norton

In its annual tradition, the City of Somerville kicked off the New Year (and Somerville’s 175th Birthday celebrations) on Sunday, Jan. 1, 2017, with a reenactment ceremony for the 241st anniversary of the “Grand Union” flag-raising ceremony at Prospect Hill Park. The ceremony began at Prospect Hill at noon, a processional led by a re-enactor portraying General George Washington on horseback left the City Hall Concourse at 11:30 a.m. 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.