Betsy Ross, born Elizabeth Phoebe Griscom and also known by her second and third married
names Elizabeth Ashburn and Elizabeth Claypoole, is widely credited with making the first American
flag and changing the stars on the flag from six-pointed to easier-to-produce five-pointed
stars. However, there is no archival evidence that this story is true.
Beginning Betsy Ross was born to Samuel Griscom and
Rebecca James Griscom in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on January 1, 1752, the eighth of seventeen
children, but only Betsy and eight of her siblings survived childhood. Two siblings,
Sarah and William died before Betsy was born, was named after the deceased Sarah). Betsy
was just five years old when her sister, Martha, died, and another sister, Ann, only lived
to the age of 2. Betsy also lost Samuel I and Samuel II, who both died at the age of
three. Two others, twins Joseph and Abigail died of the smallpox epidemic sweeping through
the city in the autumn of 1762. She grew up in a household where the plain dress and strict
discipline of the Society of Friends dominated her life. She learned to sew from her great-aunt
Sarah Elizabeth Ann Griscom. Her great-grandfather Andrew Griscom, a Quaker carpenter, emigrated
in 1680 from England. After she finished her schooling at a Quaker
public school, her father apprenticed her to an upholsterer named William Webster. At
this job, she fell in love with fellow apprentice John Ross, who was the son of Aeneas Ross,
an assistant rector at Christ Church. The couple eloped in 1773 when she was 21 at Hugg's
Tavern in Gloucester City, New Jersey. The marriage caused a split from her family and
meant her expulsion from the Quaker congregation. The young couple soon started their own upholstery
business and joined Christ Church, where their fellow congregants included George Washington
and his family. Betsy and John Ross had no children.
The war The American Revolutionary War broke out when
the two had been married for two years. As a member of the local militia, John Ross was
assigned to guard munitions and, according to one legend, was killed by a gunpowder explosion,
but family sources have doubts about this claim. The 24-year-old Betsy worked in the
upholstery business repairing uniforms and making tents and blankets and stuffed paper
tube cartridges with musket balls in 1779 for the Continental Army.
There is speculation that Betsy was the "beautiful young widow," who distracted Carl von Donop
in Mount Holly, New Jersey, after the Battle of Iron Works Hill, thus keeping his forces
out of the Battle of Trenton. On June 15, 1777, she married her second husband,
mariner Joseph Ashburn. In 1780, Ashburn's ship was captured by a British frigate and
he was charged with treason and imprisoned at Old Mill Prison, in England. During this
time, their first daughter, Zilla, died at the age of nine months and their second daughter,
Eliza, was born. Ashburn died in jail. In May 1783, she married John Claypoole, who
had met Joseph Ashburn in Old Mill Prison and had informed her of her husband's death.
The couple had five daughters; Clarissa, Susanna, Jane, Rachel, and Harriet, who died in infancy.
With the birth of their second daughter, they moved to a larger house on Second Street.
In 1793, her mother, father, and her sister Deborah Griscom Bolton have all died in the
yellow fever epidemic. After two decades of poor health, Claypoole died in 1817. Ross
continued the upholstery business for 10 more years. Upon retirement, she moved in with
her daughter, Susanna, to a section of Abington. Her daughter, Clarissa had taken over Betsy's
business. Ross, by then completely blind, spent her
last three years living with her daughter, Jane, in Philadelphia. On Saturday, January
30, 1836, Ross died at the age of 84. She was survived by five daughters: Eliza, Clarissa,
Susanna, Jane, and Rachel, and one sister, Hannah Griscom Levering, who died about eleven
months later. Although it is one of the most visited tourist
sites in Philadelphia, the claim that Ross once lived at the Betsy Ross House is a matter
of dispute. Burials
Ross's body was first buried at the Free Quaker burial ground on North 5th Street in Philadelphia.
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. Betsy Ross postage stamp
On January 1, 1952, the U.S. Post Office issued a stamp to honor the 200th anniversary of
her birth. It shows her presenting the new flag to George Washington, Robert Morris,
and George Ross. The design was taken from a painting by Charles H. Weisberger, one of
the founders and first secretary of the Memorial Association.
Memory and legend
Research conducted by the National Museum of American History notes that the story of
Betsy Ross making the first American flag for General George Washington entered into
American consciousness about the time of the 1876 centennial celebrations. In 1870 Ross's
grandson, William J. Canby, presented a paper to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania
in which he claimed that his grandmother had "made with her hands the first flag" of the
United States. Canby said he first obtained this information from his aunt Clarissa Sydney
Wilson in 1857, twenty years after Betsy Ross's death. Canby dates the historic episode based
on Washington's journey to Philadelphia, in late spring 1776, a year before Congress passed
the Flag Act. In the 2008 book The Star-Spangled Banner:
The Making of an American Icon, Smithsonian experts point out that Canby's recounting
of the event appealed to Americans eager for stories about the revolution and its heroes
and heroines. Betsy Ross was promoted as a patriotic role model for young girls and a
symbol of women's contributions to American history. Historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
further explored this line of enquiry in a 2007 article, "How Betsy Ross Became Famous:
Oral Tradition, Nationalism, and the Invention of History." Ross biographer Marla Miller
points out, however, that even if one accepts Canby's presentation, Betsy Ross was merely
one of several flag makers in Philadelphia, and her only contribution to the design was
to change the 6-pointed stars to the easier 5-pointed stars.
The Betsy Ross Bridge, connecting Philadelphia with Pennsauken, New Jersey, is named in her
honor. References
Bibliography "Betsy Ross Issue". Smithsonian National Postal
Museum. Retrieved May 29, 2014. Further reading
Chanko, Pamela. Easy Reader Biographies: Betsy Ross: The Story of Our Flag. 2007.
Cohon, Rhody, Stacia Deutsch, and Guy Francis. Betsy Ross' Star. 2007.
Cox, Vicki. Betsy Ross: A Flag For A Brand New Nation. 2005.
Harker, John B. and Museum Images & Exhibits. Betsy Ross's Five Pointed Star. 2005.
Harkins, Susan Sales and William H. Harkins. Betsy Ross. 2006.
Leepson,Marc. Flag: An American Biography. Loewen, James W., Lies My Teacher Told Me:
Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. 1995
Mader, Jan. Betsy Ross. 2007. Mara, Wil. Betsy Ross. 2006.
Miller, Marla R.. Betsy Ross and the Making of America. New York: Henry Holt
and Company, LLC. ISBN 978-0-8050-8297-5. External links
Flag: An American Biography website Betsy Ross Homepage from ushistory.org
"Betsy Ross". Find a Grave. Retrieved August 11, 2010.