Tag: history

Happy Canada Day 2024

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Happy Canada Day.

Those who celebrate Canada as their home and native land observe Canada Day on the 1st of July. The day commemorates the anniversary of the Constitution Act, which consolidated three territories into the single nation of Canada in 1867.

We salute this very special day with a very special Hattingdon — a saucer hat in the red and white of Canada’s flag, featuring an exquisitely large and gorgeous maple leaf.

We named the hat “Charlotte”. Here she is.

Charlotte Hattingdon.

History of the Day

Until 1982, Canada celebrated Dominion Day as their national holiday. The day was then renamed ‘Canada Day.’

The history of Canada isn’t splattered with a ton of wars and bloodshed, unlike many other countries. Throughout the mid-1800s, the possibility of unification between the British North American colonies was discussed.

On July 1, 1867, the British Parliament brought the British North America Act into effect, leading to the creation of independent Canada.

The territories within the dominion consisted of Upper and Lower Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. Through this act, Canada was divided into Quebec and Ontario, allowing provisions for neighboring colonies to join in the future. This is how present-day Canada came into formation. The British North America Act served as the constitution for Canada until 1982. Read more at National Today »

Maple Leaf

The maple leaf became the central national symbol with the introduction of the Canadian flag (suggested by George F. G. Stanley and sponsored by MP John Matheson) in 1965, which uses a highly stylized eleven-pointed maple leaf, referring to no specific species of maple. Earlier official uses of a maple leaf design often used more than 30 points and a short stem.

The one chosen is a generic maple leaf representing the ten species of the maple tree native to Canada — at least one of these species grows natively in every province. Wikipedia »

Best wishes for a wonderful day!

Love, Hattingdon

Updated: 07/04/24

Hattingdon H logo.

Happy 4th 2023!

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Red, white and blue fireworks featured image.

Today America celebrates her birthday, and we have a hat for it . . . . naturally!

It is based on the original American flag, featuring 13 stars and 13 stripes, in honor of the 13 original colonies — and considered essential to the American Revolution.

Betsy Ross is credited with sewing the first United States flag, so we have named Hattingdon’s stars and stripes hat Betsy in Ross’s honour.

Betsy Hattingdon.

Betsy Ross

Ross has quite a story.

Betsy Ross, née Elizabeth Griscom, born January 1, 1752, Gloucester City, New Jersey, was an American seamstress who, according to family stories, fashioned and helped design the first flag of the United States.

The eighth of 17 children, she was brought up as a member of the Society of Friends, educated in Quaker schools, and became an apprentice to a Philadelphia upholsterer. However, she married another upholsterer’s apprentice, John Ross, in 1773.

By 1775 the Rosses had opened a small shop in the commercial district of Philadelphia where they lived. John was killed in January 1776 soon after he joined a local militia company to fight in the American Revolution.

Betsy continued to work as a seamstress and upholsterer. In June 1777 she married Joseph Ashburn, who would die in prison in England in 1782 after the merchant marine brigantine on which he was serving was captured during the war.

In 1783 Betsy married again, this time to John Claypoole, who had been imprisoned with Ashburn and brought the news of his death and with whom Betsy joined the newly formed Free Quakers.

Betsy ran her upholstery business with Claypoole and then for years afterward with her daughters, granddaughters, and nieces, producing flags among other objects.

Birth of the Stars and Stripes

A Henry Mosler painting titled “The Birth of the Flag” depicting Betsy Ross and her assistants sewing an American flag in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1777.
Lambert/Getty Images.

The story that Betsy Ross made and helped design the American flag began when her grandson, William Canby, presented his paper “The History of the Flag of the United States” to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in 1870.

According to Canby’s account, his grandmother not only made the first Stars and Stripes — at George Washington’s behest — but also helped design it.

Canby based his paper on stories that he had heard from family members, along with his own memories of his grandmother’s tales of her involvement in making flags.

The Continental Congress adopted the Stars and Stripes as the national flag of the United States on June 14, 1777.

Sources: Encyclopedia Britannica » Wikipedia » Newsweek »

Born on the 4th of July

John Calvin Coolidge was born on July 4, 1872, in Plymouth Notch, Vermont — the only U.S. President to be born on America’s Independence Day.

Hattingdon H Logo in white encircled in Hattingdon brown.

Flashback Harper

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Hattingdon is so pretty in pink in this Chanel inspired fashion hat. Vivian named the hat Harper. But there is much more to the story.

Harper Hattingdon
Harper Hattingdon.

Harper is the second Hattingdon horse created by Vivian.

Curtis was the first and only Hattingdon for a long time — about two years.

Curtis merchandise did very well. We saw Curtis tee shirts all around the D.C. area, and eventually around the country and other countries too. This helped us immensely in raising the necessary funds to lobby and take action on behalf of horses who were in harm’s way.

For those of you who do not know Curtis yet, here he is — Mrs Farrell’s first and truest love!

Curtis the First.

Is he handsome . . . or is he handsome?

Now . . . back to the Harper story.

Staff continued to bug Mrs Farrell about creating another “Hattingdon”. So one snowy evening in 2009, two years after she created Curtis (also on a snowy evening), she created Harper — a sophisticated, very girlish Hattingdon— and that is how Harper “was born.”

Hattingdon Horses is the cartoon horses’ series name, and each hat is given its own distinctive name.

Happy Flashback Friday.

By Hattingdon Staff

Hattingdon H Logo in her signature brown.

© Vivian J. Grant

Updated 11.22 pm EST