Old Glory Chapter

History

We Support Our Troops

The Old Glory Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution was organized in Franklin, Tennessee, in 1897, in the home of Miss Susie Gentry.  Her home was the birthplace of every patriotic organization in Franklin with the exception of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. 

Among the prospective members who gathered to discuss chartering a local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) were the founding regent Miss Susie, her mother Mrs. Martha Jones Gentry, Miss Mary Lou Reese, Mrs. Bettie Whitaker Thomas, Mrs. Loulie Cochrane Perkins, Mrs. Jennie Kendrick Collins, Miss Martha Pearl Wall, Mrs. Estelle Mosely Bostick, Mrs. Leighla Perkins Cochrane, Miss Hattie McGavock Cowan, Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Bradley Fentress, Mrs. Ophelia Wood House, Mrs. Lucy Henderson Horton, Mrs. Ann Eliza Bradley Winstead, and Mrs. Macon Bostick Beckwith.

Two years prior to the organization of the chapter, the first Flag Day in Tennessee was celebrated on June 14, 1895, in the Gentry home.  At the organizing meeting of the chapter, this event was remembered, and Miss Susie suggested that the chapter honor the flag with the name of “Old Glory.”

Most people associate the name “Old Glory” with Captain William Driver’s flag.  To set the record straight, Miss Susie wrote in a letter to Mrs. Warren Hollinshead, NSDAR President General in 1936, “I want you and the National Society, DAR, to know why I, as Organizing Regent of Old Glory, gave it such a name. 

When John Paul Jones had his famous fight with the Serapis, the flag staff was struck, and the flag was ‘heading’ downward to the sea, when a heroic, gallant sailor made a plunge for it, saying,  ‘Old Glory shall never be lowered on land or sea,’ and rescued it.”  Miss Susie Gentry was a descendant of the Jones family through her mother.  It was with her mother’s family that John Paul had lived when he took the surname of “Jones.”

The Old Glory Chapter has grown from this small nucleus of patriotic women  to become a highly-regarded organization in the community, the State of Tennessee, and the nation, as it has  faithfully and enthusiastically supported  the motto of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, “God, Home, and Country” through its programs and activities. 

(Adapted and summarized from an article written for the Williamson  County Historical Society, by Virginia Bowman, County Historian.)