Colonel William Lowther

This flag honors Colonel William Lowther, one of the most prominent figures of the western Virginia frontier, in what is now West Virginia. Born in seventeen forty-two, Lowther married Sudna Hughes, sister of the famous frontier scouts Elias and Jesse Hughes, and settled along Simpson's Creek in the early seventeen seventies. He spent his life defending scattered cabins against raids, through the long years of the Revolution, when he is said to have helped organize the militia and scouts that guarded the frontier settlements.

Beyond the rifle, he served the new county too, sitting in the Virginia Assembly and becoming the first sheriff of Harrison County, as well as a justice of the peace. He died in eighteen fourteen, remembered as a leader who held a dangerous border together for a generation.