Untold Stories: Stephen Moylan, the Irish-American Who Named the U.S.

“I should like vastly to go with full and ample powers from the United States of America.” —Stephen Moylan

On this day in 1776, March 7, George Washington made a man named Stephen Moylan his aide-de-camp and a lieutenant colonel in the Continental Army. Moylan went on to serve various roles in the Revolutionary Army, from quartermaster general to commander of a dragoon regiment to head of cavalry to brigadier general. But what makes this Irish Catholic immigrant so important in the history of the United States is that Moylan is the first person on record to use the term “United States of America,” in a Jan. 2, 1776, letter from Washington’s headquarters.

The New England Historical Societyexplains:

“On Jan. 1, 1776, Washington paraded the newly reorganized Continental Army in Charlestown, now Somerville. He raised the first American flag, called the Grand Union Flag, on Prospect Hill. It had 13 stripes, though it didn’t have stars yet – just the crosses of England and Scotland in the canton. Some people call that New Year’s Day flag-raising the first real Declaration of Independence.

The next day, Moylan wrote a letter to his friend Joseph Reed. He thought the colonies could use an ambassador to Spain. He knew the country and thought he could do the job. And so he wrote to Reed in Philadelphia.

‘I should like vastly to go with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain.’”