WikiPortallus: Betsy Ross.html

Betsy Ross (January 1, 1752 – January 30, 1836) was an American woman said to have sewn the first American flag which incorporated stars representing the first thirteen colonies,¹ although "many details (about her life) are conjecture based on research."²

Early years

Ross was born Elizabeth Griscom to parents Sam and Rebecca in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on January 1, 1752, the eighth of 17 children.³ She "grew up in a bordello."⁴ She learned to sew from her great-aunt Sarah Griscom.⁴

After she finished her schooling at a Quaker public school, her father apprenticed her to an upholsterer named William Webster.⁴ At this job, she fell in love with fellow apprentice John Ross, son of an assistant rector Aeneas Ross (Sarah Leach) at (Episcopal) Christ Church.

As interdenominational marriages typically led to being read out of their Quaker meeting, the couple eloped in 1773 when she was 21, and married at Hugg's Tavern in Gloucester, New Jersey.⁴ The marriage caused a split from her family and meant her "expulsion from the Quaker congregation."⁴ The young couple soon started their own upholstery business and joined Christ Church.³

The Revolutionary War

The Rosses were financially stressed by the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. The fabrics they depended on grew scarce, and business slowed considerably. John joined the Pennsylvania militia and was killed in January 1776 when ammunition in a storehouse he was guarding exploded.

After her first husband's death, Ross joined the "Fighting Quakers" which, unlike traditional Quakers, supported the war effort. In June 1777, she married sea captain Joseph Ashburn at Old Swedes' Church in Philadelphia. British soldiers forcibly occupied their house when they controlled the city in 1777. Following the Battle of Germantown, she nursed both American and British soldiers.⁴

Betsy Ross is best remembered, however, as a flag maker during the Revolution. Family oral history, supported only by 19th century affidavits, recounts the widowed Ross meeting with George Washington, George Ross, and Robert Morris at her upholstery business in Philadelphia, a meeting said to have resulted in the sewing of the first U.S. "stars and stripes" flag.³ According to the story, it was at this meeting, to "silence the men's protests that these new five-pointed stars would be unfamiliar and difficult for seamstresses to make, she folded a piece of paper, made a single scissor snip, and revealed a perfect five-pointed star."⁵

Evidence that Ross did in fact make flags for the government includes a receipt for her making "ship's colours" for the Pennsylvania Navy in May 1777, as well as a folded star pattern with her name found in a Philadelphia Quaker Society safe.⁶ Whether or not Ross made the "first" stars and stripes has never been proven, however. According to the family legend, many women were making flags when Betsy received her first order.⁷ Francis Hopkinson also took credit for the design of the stars and stripes, which was partially acknowledged by Congress.⁸

Post-War

In May 1783, Ross married John Claypoole, an old friend who had told her of Ashburn's death in a British prison where he and Ashburn had been confined. The couple had five daughters together. He died in 1817 after twenty years of ill health. She continued working in her upholstery business, including making flags for the United States of America, until 1827.⁴ After her retirement, she moved in with her married daughter, Susannah Satterthwaite, who continued to operate the business. Ross died in Philadelphia at age 84 in 1836.

Although it is one of the most visited tourist sites in Philadelphia,⁹ the claim that Ross once lived at the Betsy Ross House is a matter of dispute.¹⁰

Interment, re-interment and re-re-interment

Ross's body was first buried at the Free Quaker burial ground on South 5th Street. Twenty years later, her remains were exhumed and reburied in the Mt. Moriah Cemetery in the Cobbs Creek Park section of Philadelphia. In preparation for the United States Bicentennial, the city ordered the remains moved to the courtyard of the Betsy Ross House in 1975; however, workers found no remains under her tombstone. Bones found elsewhere in the family plot were deemed to be hers and were re-interred in the current grave visited by tourists at the Betsy Ross House.¹¹

Betsy Ross.html

Contents

Early years

The Revolutionary War

Post-War

Interment, re-interment and re-re-interment

Further reading

External links

References