A legendary Irish barman saved Philly’s most famous Revolutionary flag from smoke and flames

“The castle is on fire!” the three women said as they hurried inside the Irish Bar that night in January 2010.

Dan Bonner, longtime proprietor of Bonner’s Irish Pub in Center City, posed the obvious question.

“What castle, girls?”

But Bonner knew before the words left him.

While a patron dialed 911, Bonner dashed one block to the 23rd Street Armory. The massive stone structure, replete with towers, battlements, and parapets, was engulfed in black smoke. Built in 1901, and once used to store guns and stable horses — and known to generations of gawking neighborhood kids and confused bar-goers, as simply, “the castle” — the imposing-looking armory is home to the historic First Troop Philadelphia Cavalry.

Founded in defense of the colonies in 1774 at Carpenters Hall, the First City Troop, as it is also called, owns the distinction of being the oldest mounted military unit in the nation. A favored bodyguard of George Washington — and still an active unit in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard — its volunteers have served in every American conflict since those fiery days of rebellion.

Sporting silver-buttoned tunics, shiny sabers, and bearskin-crested helmets on parade days — like when they march each year to honor Washington’s days of birth and death — the close-knit troop of about 65 members has also been described as probably the most idiosyncratic unit in the U.S. military.

Originally composed of colonial-era men of means and gentlemanly fox hunters — troopers had to provide their own horses (the unit mechanized long ago), but it remains the only U.S. Army unit in which membership and officers are decided by election.

This weekend the First City Troop will break out their bearskins for Philly’s grand 250th U.S. Army birthday celebrations. The three-day event, hosted in the Historic District and Valley Forge, includes tons of Army brass, parades, processions, Army band concerts, and church services. On Saturday, at Independence Mall, the troopers will march alongside other units dating to the Revolution.

Normally, they drill once a month at the armory. These days, the horses are long gone and the building’s spacious drill hall, riding ring, elegant dining room, officers quarters, and museum are rented out for everything from weddings and galas to flea markets and musical performances.

Over the years, the troopers became a part of the community. Like when they guarded local businesses during the unrest of the pandemic.

“They’re a big presence in the neighborhood,” Bonner said. “It means something.”

So it meant something the night the castle was on fire.

Armed with a spare key — he caters events at the armory — Bonner pushed open the armory door and searched smoke-choked rooms. Nobody was inside, but the First City Troop’s celebrated historical collection languished in danger. Revolutionary muskets and uniforms and Civil War pistols. Rare portraits and soldiers’ letters and photos. A World War II bomber jacket that belonged to a trooper who served as a B-17 tail-gunner on 35 combat missions. A license plate nabbed from one of Mussolini’s limousines.

In all, centuries of irreplaceable relics that tell the storied tale of the troop, its city, and the Army.

“There are antiques in there that can’t be replaced by money or God,” the barman shouted to the firemen storming the castle.

Arriving at the smoky scene, and being told no one was hurt, Dennis Boylan, former commander of the First City Troop, thought only of the flag.

The famous flag of the First City Troop. The original standard painted in 1775 for the Light Horse of the City of Philadelphia, as the troop was known back when it rode with Washington. The very banner the unit trudged across the Delaware with Washington at Trenton (their horses too big for the boat, the troopers were forced to swim their horses through the icy waters.) The colors the troopers waved while charging alongside Washington through the British lines at Princeton. That stills bear the 13 silver stripes hand-painted over the flag’s original British Union, when the new nation declared independence. A cherished heirloom made of silk and silver braid and gold shell paint — and almost religiously preserved since before the founding of the Republic.

That flag.

“You preserve and protect your colors,” said Boylan.

The fast-responding firefighters of Engine 43 and Ladder 9 took quick action to save the troop’s history. Before swinging their axes into walls concealing the flames, which started accidentally, the firemen removed gilded paintings of former troopers, then doused the flames, before they reached the flag.

“The grand savior of the collection is the Philadelphia Fire Department,” said Boylan. “And Dan Bonner, who heroically rushed into the building to make sure no one was in it and got the firemen quickly inside.”

Still, the building suffered significant smoke damage, which has since been restored. Inspecting the flag’s water-damaged mount and soot-covered frame, Boylan and the troopers realized the flag had escaped almost entirely unhurt.

“The flag is a survivor and it is a remarkable survivor,” said Virginia Jarvis Whelan, a textile conservator and owner of Filaments Conservation Studio, who intricately treated the flag in 2020. “It made it through the revolution and survived being an object of devotion and pride...and it lasted through the fire. The First City Troop has been wonderful custodians.”

Whelan, who previously conserved Washington’s War Tent, a crown jewel of the Museum of the American Revolution, worked alongside paintings conservator Steven Erisoty in a space at the armory. They removed the flag from its damaged display and conducted X-rays and spectrographic analysis on the centuries-old banner. Whelan inserted new dyed silk, which Erisoty painted to restore deterioration of the flag’s symbols.

Originally painted by Philadelphia artist James Claypoole, the flag’s imagery represents the solidarity of the 13 united states. In the center, below a Light Horse, are 13 knotted ribbons. A Native American, symbolizing North America, wears 13 feathers and carries a pole with a liberty cap. An angel blows a trumpet.

None of the original silk was disturbed, Whelan said.

“It shines,” Boylan said.

The restored flag has a new home, at least for a time. The saved standard serves as a centerpiece of the Museum of the American Revolution’s grand exhibit honoring America’s 250th birthday, Banners of Liberty. Featuring 16 original Continental Army and American militia flags — and one of the earliest examples of the Stars and Stripes known to exist — the exhibit represents the largest gathering of Revolutionary War banners since the war’s end in 1783. It runs through Aug. 10.

The First City Troop’s Flag stands out as the only flag in the exhibit that is still in the possession of its original unit from the war.

“It’s a witness to all of America’s history, but also all of Philadelphia’s history,” said James Taub, an associate curator at the museum.