BETSY ROSS
1752-1836
In 1752 the eighth child was born in the Quaker family of Griscom in
Philadelphia, and was named Elizabeth. Nine other children came after
her, so with a total of sixteen brothers and sisters you may be sure
she never had much opportunity to be lonely. Perhaps the large number
of children is the explanation for her being apprenticed at Webster’s,
the leading upholstery establishment in the city. There Elizabeth
became acquainted with John Ross, one of her fellow-apprentices; their
friendship grew to love, and when she was twenty-one they were married.
Now John Ross was the son of an Episcopal clergyman and because of that
fact Elizabeth was “disowned” by the Friends for her marriage.
Soon afterward they left Webster’s and opened a little upholstery shop
of their own, in a two-story house on Arch Street--a quaint little
house that was old then, for it was built of bricks that came over
to America as ballast in one of William Penn’s vessels. It is still
standing, in a good state of preservation, and very little changed from
the old days, with its wide doors, big cupboards, narrow stairs and
tiny window-panes. The front room was the shop, where Elizabeth and
John waited on customers; and next to this was the back parlor.
Now Elizabeth Ross was not only an energetic and trained upholsterer,
she was also the most skilful needlewoman in Philadelphia, and had
a great reputation for embroidering and darning. There was a story
current of a young lady visiting in the city, who wanted an elaborately
embroidered frock mended. She was directed to take it to Mistress Betsy
Ross. And the owner said, when it was finished, that the darning was
the handsomest part of the gown! Considerable artistic skill had Betsy,
too, for she could draw free-hand, very rapidly and accurately, the
complicated designs used in those days for quilting. Withal she was a
thoroughly efficient housekeeper.
The happiness of the Ross family was not to last long. The spirit of
liberty was awakening among the colonists, the spirit of resistance
to the demands of the mother country. In common with many patriotic
women, Betsy Ross saw her husband march away for military service. With
several other young men he was guarding cannon balls and artillery
stores on one of the city wharves along the Delaware River, when
he received a serious injury, from the effects of which he died in
January, 1776, after long and anxious nursing on the part of his young
wife. He was buried in the Christ Church burying-ground; and in that
historic old Philadelphia church you can still see the Ross pew, marked
with the Stars and Stripes.
There was Betsy Ross, a widow at twenty-four. She determined to
maintain herself independently, if possible, and to continue alone the
upholstery business they had developed together. About five months
after her husband’s death, some time between the twenty-second of May
and the fifth of June, she was one day working in the shop when three
gentlemen called.
The first was General Washington, in Philadelphia for a few days to
consult the Continental Congress. Mistress Ross had frequently seen
him, for the story is that he had visited her shop more than once, to
have her embroider the ruffles for his shirts, an important branch of
fine hand-sewing in those days. With him was Robert Morris, to go down
in history as the treasurer and financier of the Revolution; and her
husband’s uncle, Colonel George Ross, a signer of the Declaration of
Independence.
These gentlemen had come to consult her. She knew, of course, how the
various banners carried by troops from the different colonies, as
well as by different regiments, had caused confusion and might mean
danger. It was time to do away with the pine tree flag, the beaver
flag, the rattlesnake flag, the hope flag, the silver crescent flag,
the anchor flag, the liberty tree flag, and all the rest of them, and
have a single standard for the American army. Betsy Ross had heard,
too, of the Cambridge flag, often called the grand union flag, which
Washington had raised the New Year’s day before, a flag half English,
half American, with thirteen red and white stripes, and the crosses of
St. George and St. Andrew. But since the first of the year events had
moved rapidly and the desire for separation from England had become
steadily stronger. A new flag was needed, to show the growing spirit of
Americanism--which was soon to crystallize on the fourth of July.
All this Betsy Ross knew, as a good patriot would. And she could not
have been greatly surprised when General Washington said they had come
to consult her about a national flag.
“Can you make a flag?” he asked.
Modestly and with some diffidence she replied, “I don’t know, sir, but
I can try.”
Then in the little back parlor Washington showed her a rough sketch he
had made--a square flag with thirteen stripes of red and white, and
thirteen stars in the blue canton. He asked her opinion of the design.
With unerring accuracy of eye she saw at once what was needed to make
the flag more beautiful, more attractive. She suggested that the
proportions be changed, so that the length would be a third more than
the width; that the thirteen stars should not be scattered irregularly
over the canton, but grouped to form some design, say a circle or a
star, or placed in parallel rows; and lastly that a five-pointed star
was more symmetrical than-one with six points.
“But,” asked Washington, “isn’t it more difficult to make?”
In answer practical Betsy Ross took up a piece of paper, folded it
over, and with one clip of her scissors cleverly made a perfect star
with five even points.
That was sufficient, and the general drew up his chair to her table
and made another pencil sketch, embodying her three suggestions. The
second sketch was copied and colored by a Philadelphia artist, William
Barrett, a painter of some note, who returned it to Mistress Ross.
Meantime not knowing just how to make a flag, for it must be sewed in a
particular way, she went to a shipping merchant, an old Scotchman who
was a friend of Robert Morris, to borrow a ship’s flag as a guide.
And in this way Betsy Ross made the first Stars and Stripes. To try the
effect, the new flag was run up to the peak of one of the vessels in
the Delaware River, the story goes, a ship commanded by Paul Jones; and
the result was so pleasing that on the same day the flag was carried
into Congress and approved. At the same time the Congress passed a
resolution putting Paul Jones in command of the _Ranger_.
“The flag and I were born the same day and hour,” Jones used to say.
“We are twins, we can not be parted in life or death. So long as we can
float, we shall float together. If we must sink we shall go down as
one.”
It was not until June 14, 1777, that the Continental Congress passed
a resolution formally adopting this flag as the national standard, a
resolution reported to have been introduced by John Adams. Another and
unexplained delay followed, for not until September was this resolution
publicly promulgated.
The fact that Betsy Ross was not named in the _Congressional Record_
has been considered by some sufficient evidence that the whole story
is a myth. But there is no Congressional record whatever about the
Cambridge flag, which was used for almost a year. Is it surprising then
that its modification was not put on record promptly? There was no
newspaper notice of the resolution of June fourteenth, the basis of
our modern flag day. And in all the letters and diaries and writings
of the time, there is found no mention of this flag resolution. Betsy
Ross had made the flag months earlier, and all that time it had been
gradually coming into use. Does not that explain the apparent lack of
interest? This story she told, over and over and over, to her daughters
and grandchildren, and in later years they wrote the account down, just
as they had heard it from her, and as you have read it here.
We know too from other records that before the flag was officially
adopted by Congress, Elizabeth Ross was engaged in flagmaking. For
in May of 1777 the state navy board of Pennsylvania passed an order
to pay her the sum of fourteen pounds, twelve shillings and two
pence, for making ships’ colors for the fleet in the Delaware River.
And immediately after the resolution did pass, she was authorized
to proceed at once to manufacture a large number of flags for the
Continental Congress.
For more than fifty years Betsy Ross continued to make government
flags, with her daughters and nieces, and later her grandchildren,
helping her. She continued to sew red and white stripes together and
put five-pointed stars on the blue canton, even after her second
marriage to a sea captain, while he went back and forth to Europe
on his dangerous business, and during his imprisonment in England,
where he died. When his friend, who had been a fellow-prisoner, was
finally released and returned to Philadelphia to deliver to Betsy Ross
her husband’s little property, she married this messenger and kept
on making flags. Except for a brief residence with her daughter, she
continued to live in the quaint little house on Arch Street where the
flag was born. Shortly before her death she became completely blind;
but her busy fingers must keep on stitching, and with her little
grandsons to sort the colors for her, she sewed happily on carpet rags.
When Mistress Ross retired from the business of making flags her
daughter Clarissa took over this work and carried it on until 1857.
Flags of many kinds they made--for army and navy, for arsenals and
the merchant marine; flags with thirteen stars in a circle, like a
round-robin to show that one state should have no precedence over the
others; flags with stars in parallel rows of four, five and four; flags
with fifteen stripes and stars; flags bearing the arms of Pennsylvania,
painted on the silk by William Barrett.
It was George Washington, more than any other, who seems to have been
most interested in the question of a national flag. But it was to the
skilled needlewoman that he took his first rough design, to have her
opinion of its worth. It is to Betsy Ross that much of the beauty of
our flag is due. A true patriot of Revolutionary times, her humble life
is an incentive to others, showing that there is more than one way to
serve the nation--even if one is known only as a maker of ruffles.