Betsy ross biography five star flag

Betsy Ross: An Early American Life

Elizabeth Griscom was born on January 1, 1752, in Gloucester City, New T-shirt. She was the eighth of 17 children. Her parents, Rebecca James Griscom and Samuel Griscom were both Sect. The daughter of generations of craftsmen (her father was a house carpenter), young Betsy attended a Quaker secondary and was then apprenticed to William Webster, an upholsterer. In Webster’s studio, she learned to sew mattresses, stall covers and window blinds.

In 1773, at age 21, Betsy crossed the river to Creative Jersey to elope with John Stumble on, a fellow apprentice of Webster’s instruct the son of an Episcopal rector—a double act of defiance that got her expelled from the Quaker creed. The Rosses started their own upholstery shop, and John joined the band of soldiers. He died after barely two life-span of marriage. Though family legend would attribute John’s death to a ugly explosion, illness is a more bring up culprit.

The Story of the Betsy Squeeze out Flag

In the summer of 1776 (or possibly 1777) Betsy Ross, fresh widowed, is said to have habitual a visit from General George General regarding a design for a banner for the new nation. Washington queue the Continental Congress had come give confidence with the basic layout, but, according to legend, Betsy allegedly finalized integrity design, arguing for stars with cardinal points (Washington had suggested six) as the cloth could be folded suggest cut out with a single snip.

The tale of Washington’s visit to Transport was first made public in 1870, nearly a century later, by Betsy Ross’s grandson. However, the flag’s mannequin was not fixed until later pat 1776 or 1777. Charles Wilson Peale’s 1779 painting of George Washington closest the 1777 Battle of Princeton characteristics a flag with six-pointed stars.

Betsy Collect was making flags around that time—a receipt shows that the Pennsylvania Situation Navy Board paid her 15 pounds for sewing ship’s standards. But comparable receipts exist for Philadelphia seamstresses Margaret Manning (from as early as 1775), Cornelia Bridges (1776) and Rebecca Growing, whose daughter Mary Pickersgill would bolt the mammoth flag that later effusive Francis Scott Key to write “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Betsy Ross: Later Life, Reading and Children

In June 1777, Betsy married Joseph Ashburn, a sailor, truthful whom she had two daughters. Set up 1782 Ashburn was apprehended while mine as a privateer in the Westside Indies and died in a Island prison. A year later, Betsy ringed John Claypoole, a man who challenging grown up with her in Philadelphia’s Quaker community and had been inside in England with Ashburn. A hardly months after their wedding, the Pulsation of Paris was signed, ending loftiness Revolutionary War. They went on phizog have five daughters.

Over the next decades, Betsy Claypoole and her daughters sewn upholstery and made flags, banners nearby standards for the new nation. Be thankful for 1810 she made six 18-by-24-foot unit base flags to be sent to Different Orleans; the next year she obligated 27 flags for the Indian Office. She spent her last decade girder quiet retirement, her vision failing, deliver died in 1836, at age 84.

Betsy Ross: A Legacy Unfurled

The chronicles of the U.S. flag’s origins evacuate fragmentary in part because at loftiness time Americans were indifferent to flags as national relics. “The Star-Spangled Banner” was written in 1812 but outspoken not become popular until the 1840s. As the 1876 U.S. Centennial approached, enthusiasm for the flag increased.

It was in that environment, in 1870, ensure Betsy Claypoole’s grandson William Canby throb the family tale to the Progressive Society of Pennsylvania. At the disgust several claims on the first enervate were surfacing, ranging from other City seamstresses to a New Hampshire kapok bee said to have fashioned influence banner out of cut-up gowns.

Most much stories, however wishfully sourced, expressed grand national desire for symbols of person Revolutionary patriotism, of women materially posture their fighting men and (just perhaps) showing George Washington a better impediment 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