Betsy ross biography five star flag

Betsy Ross: An Early American Activity

Elizabeth Griscom was born break into January 1, 1752, in City City, New Jersey. She was the eighth of 17 descendants. Her parents, Rebecca James Griscom and Samuel Griscom were both Quakers. The daughter of generations of craftsmen (her father was a house carpenter), young Betsy attended a Quaker school gleam was then apprenticed to William Webster, an upholsterer.

In Webster’s workshop, she learned to fix mattresses, chair covers and plate glass blinds.

In 1773, disagree with age 21, Betsy crossed illustriousness river to New Jersey disruption elope with John Ross, cool fellow apprentice of Webster’s deed the son of an Office rector—a double act of resistance that got her expelled let alone the Quaker church.

The Rosses started their own upholstery discussion group, and John joined the private army. He died after barely link years of marriage. Though coat legend would attribute John’s have killed to a gunpowder explosion, malady is a more likely culprit.

The Story of the Betsy Abhorrent Flag

In the summer obvious 1776 (or possibly 1777) Betsy Ross, newly widowed, is uttered to have received a go from General George Washington in the matter of a design for a fail for the new nation.

President and the Continental Congress challenging come up with the chief layout, but, according to story, Betsy allegedly finalized the found, arguing for stars with fin points (Washington had suggested six) because the cloth could befit folded and cut out succeed a single snip.

The tale model Washington’s visit to Ross was first made public in 1870, nearly a century later, strong Betsy Ross’s grandson.

However, loftiness flag’s design was not plunge until later than 1776 atmosphere 1777. Charles Wilson Peale’s 1779 painting of George Washington multitude the 1777 Battle of Town features a flag with six-pointed stars.

Betsy Ross was making flags around that time—a receipt shows that the Pennsylvania State Naval forces Board paid her 15 pounds for sewing ship’s standards.

However similar receipts exist for Metropolis seamstresses Margaret Manning (from makeover early as 1775), Cornelia Bridges (1776) and Rebecca Young, whose daughter Mary Pickersgill would connect the mammoth flag that late inspired Francis Scott Key although write “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Betsy Ross: Later Life, Work and Issue

In June 1777, Betsy wedded conjugal Joseph Ashburn, a sailor, revamp whom she had two spawn.

In 1782 Ashburn was appreciated while working as a crewman in the West Indies good turn died in a British censure. A year later, Betsy wedded John Claypoole, a man who had grown up with faction in Philadelphia’s Quaker community gift had been imprisoned in England with Ashburn. A few months after their wedding, the Worship of Paris was signed, happening the Revolutionary War.

They went on to have five daughters.

Over the next decades, Betsy Claypoole and her daughters sewed upholstery and made flags, banners stall standards for the new check account.

In 1810 she made sextet 18-by-24-foot garrison flags to aside sent to New Orleans; leadership next year she made 27 flags for the Indian Offshoot. She spent her last decennary in quiet retirement, her attitude failing, and died in 1836, at age 84.

Betsy Ross: Trig Legacy Unfurled

The records observe the U.S.

flag’s origins move backward and forward fragmentary in part because go off the time Americans were uncaring to flags as national relics. “The Star-Spangled Banner” was inevitable in 1812 but did plead for become popular until the 1840s. As the 1876 U.S. Anniversary approached, enthusiasm for the droop increased.

It was in that habitat, in 1870, that Betsy Claypoole’s grandson William Canby presented loftiness family tale to the Real Society of Pennsylvania.

At goodness time several claims on depiction first flag were surfacing, ample from other Philadelphia seamstresses dealings a New Hampshire quilting bee said to have fashioned rectitude banner out of cut-up gowns.

Most such stories, however wishfully sourced, expressed a national desire disclose symbols of female Revolutionary devotion, of women materially supporting their fighting men and (just perhaps) showing George Washington a worthier way to make a star.

Citation Information

Article Title

Betsy Ross

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/betsy-ross

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

June 22, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009