So it’s fitting that a ceremony honoring the nation’s flag was held by the Warren Elks Lodge Monday night.

Boy Scouts with Troop 8 and Troop 13 presented each of the flags that have represented the country dating back to colonial times while Mark Silvis shared the history of each of those flags.

The date ties back to June 14, 1777, when the Second Continental Congress passed a resolution that “Resolved, That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.”

Gary Fry, AMVETS past national commander and commander of the Sugar Grove post, was the keynote speaker and said that the five flags in his home are some of their most treasured items because they were flown places in his honor.

Times Observer photo by Josh Cotton The Civil Air Patrol lowered and raised the flag as part of Monday’s Flag Day event.

Fry said Pennsylvania was the first state to celebrate flag day as a state holiday.

A total of eight flags were presented on Monday.

The Pine Tree Flag was adopted in late 1775 and used by the Continental Army and Massachusetts state navy vessels.

Southern colonies started to fly Gadsden’s flag, the famed yellow field with a snake reading “Don’t Tread On Me,” in 1776.

The first national flag came to be the Continental Colours in 1776. While the stripes are the same as those on today’s flag, instead of a field of stars, the upper left corner was emblazoned with the British Union Jack.

In 1777, the Union Jack was exchanged for 13 stars to represent a new constellation.

Eighteen years later, in 1795, saw the addition of Vermont and Kentucky to the union as well as two more stars and stripes, but the additional stripes would only stand until 1818. At that point, the flag was up to 20 stars and back to 13 stripes, where it remains today.

In 1960, the 50th and final star was added to the flag with the addition of Hawaii as a state.

History from the Order of Elks indicates that the Grand Lodge designated by resolution June 14 as Flag Day, mandating observances at each lodge in 1917.

The Elks prompted President Woodrow Wilson to recognize the observance of Flag Day, a step not taken until, Fry said, then President Harry Truman declared it a national observance.

Fry said that prompting came, in part, from the Missouri Elks Lodge of which Truman was a member.

The Warren Elks have presented a Flag Day program since 1908.

The flag has “been an ensign of freedom, liberty and opportunity,” Bill Thompson said in the invocation.