The Selectmen on Monday night voted to approve a design that was
created by members of the first town flag committee in collaboration with one of
the people who submitted an alternate vision after the original design failed to
win the approval of the board last year. [It was] a unanimous vote to OK the
design created by a committee of local artists Julianna Haubrich and Anya
Sheldon, Williamstown Historical Museum Director Sarah Currie and Selectman
Thomas Sheldon, who convened the original committee along with Currie, Anya
Sheldon and other collaborators.
"I want to stress collaboration here,"
Thomas Sheldon said. "There was no pride of ‘artistship' — as opposed to
authorship. People were very generous in looking at other people's ideas and
evaluating them and commenting on them. "Everything blended together nicely
because of that collaboration."
The finished product, which will be
displayed on the town website, is a pared-down version of the original, which
had four images representing the core values of agriculture, natural beauty,
art, education and history.
The new flag has a single image that
incorporates many of those concepts. In the background, there are three hills,
with Mount Greylock in the middle with the War Memorial visible at the summit.
In the center is a depiction of the 1753 House, a recreation of the kind of
house occupied by the town's first settlers. The house appears to sit on a
furrowed field, suggesting agriculture. At the bottom are the words "Culture,
Education, Nature." At the top is 1765, the year of the town's founding.
![[Flag of Williamstown, Massachusetts]](../images/u/us-mawmt.jpg)
image by Masao Okazaki, 29 July 2019