Flag of the President of the United States there are claims that a special flag was used during a trip by President Jackson to New York City in 1832, and a description of a "square, plain blue flag" used on a boat in the Brooklyn naval yard while transporting President Martin Van Buren on July 15, 1839. An 1848 British flag book by John William Norie, and also the 1853 "The Illustrated London Geography" by Joseph Guy, have similar illustrations of a flag labeled as being the U.S. president's flag. Neither book reveals any further information about this flag, and such a flag is not mentioned in the
Flag of the United States this flag until 1777, when it would form the basis for the subsequent "de jure" designs. The name "Grand Union" was first applied to the Continental Colors by George Preble in his 1872 history of the U.S. flag. The flag closely resembles the British East India Company flag of the era, and Sir Charles Fawcett argued in 1937 that the company flag inspired the design. Both flags could have been easily constructed by adding white stripes to a British Red Ensign, one of the three maritime flags used throughout the British Empire at the time. However, an East India Company