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    PUBLICATIONS

    OF THE

    SCOTTSVILLE LITERARY SOCIETY,

    No. 7.

    DID BETSEY ROSS DESIGN

    THE FLAG OF THE

    UNITED STATES OF AMERICA?

    By Franklin Hanford.

    SCOTTSVILLE, N. Y.

    ISAAC VAN HOOSER. PRINTER.

    1917.




DID BETSY ROSS DESIGN THE FLAG OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA?

By Franklin Hanford.

[Illustration]

A paper read before the Scottsville Literary Society, January 22, 1917.

[Illustration]


On Saturday, the fourteenth of June, 1777, the Continental Congress,
then in session in Philadelphia, adopted a resolution which reads as
follows: “Resolved, that the flag of the thirteen United States be
thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the Union be thirteen
stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.”

“The Journal of Congress is silent as to the name of the member or
committee that introduced this resolution and neither is there any
record of the discussions that may have preceded the adoption of our
national emblem.” “It is a matter of great regret that no record of
the circumstances attending the birth of the Stars and Stripes has
ever been found,” for we should like to know who designed our present
flag, and also, though a matter of less interest, who made, that is
manufactured, the first one.

Some years ago I happened to see upon the wall at Mrs. Emma H. Miller’s
house in Scottsville, a very attractive picture in colors. This picture
represented General Washington seated on the left and Robert Morris and
the Hon. George Ross standing near him, while, seated on the right, was
Betsey Ross with a =completed= flag of thirteen stripes, and thirteen
stars in a blue field, in her lap. “C. H. Weisberger, Copyright 1903,”
was inscribed near the bottom of the picture. Underneath it was this
legend; “Birth of our nation’s flag. The first American flag accepted
by Congress and adopted by resolution of Congress June 14, 1777, as the
national standard, was made by Betsey Ross, in 1776 at 239 Arch Street,
Philadelphia, in the room represented in this picture. The Committee,
Robert Morris and Hon. George Ross, accompanied by General George
Washington, called upon this celebrated woman and together with her
suggestions, produced our beautiful emblem of liberty.”

The legend under this picture led me to make some inquiries as to
Betsey Ross. Who was she? And did she assist in designing and did she
make the first flag or ensign of the United States of America? If not
Betsey Ross, who did design and make it? Endeavoring to answer these
questions, I have consulted some thirteen works relating wholly or in
part to the flag of the United States. A list of them is appended to
this paper.

Betsey or Elizabeth Griscom was the fifth daughter of Samuel and
Rebecca (James) Griscom and was born January 1, 1752. She was
married when quite young to John Ross, son of the Reverend Aeneas
Ross, an Episcopal clergyman of Newcastle, Delaware, whose brother,
the Hon. George Ross, became one of the signers of the Declaration
of Independence. George Ross was interested in the furnishing of
cannon-balls, with perhaps other military stores for the Colonial
defence, and it was while on guard at night over these, with other
young men, that the nephew, John Ross, Betsey’s first husband, received
an injury from the effects of which he died in January, 1776.

It was during her widowhood that Betsey Ross is said to have made
the first Stars and Stripes. For a second husband she married a
sea-captain, John or Joseph Ashburne, who died in Mill Prison, England,
in 1782. The following year, she married Ashburne’s prison-mate, John
Claypoole, who died in 1817.

Betsey Ross died in her daughter’s home in Philadelphia January
30, 1836, aged eighty-four. She was buried in the Cemetery of the
Society of Free Quakers on South Fifth Street, from which place her
remains were transferred in 1857 to Mount Moriah Cemetery. Four of
her daughters grew up and married. Betsey Ross’ first husband was
an upholsterer. She continued his business and for fifty years was
an expert needlewoman, lace-maker and flag-maker. After her death,
Mrs. Clarissa Wilson, one of her daughters, succeeded to the business
and continued to make flags for the arsenals and navy-yards and for
the mercantile marine for many years. But being conscientious on
the subject of war, Mrs. Wilson gave up the Government business but
continued to make flags for the merchant marine until 1857.

The earliest “History of the National Flag,” of which I have knowledge,
was written by Captain Schuyler Hamilton, U. S. Army, and published at
Philadelphia in 1853, sixty-four years ago. Captain Hamilton makes no
mention of Betsey Ross, and does not give to any one person or group of
persons the honor of designing our flag.

The next “History of Our Flag” was written by Ferdinand L. Sarmiento
and published in 1864, during the Civil War, at Philadelphia.
Sarmiento, like Captain Hamilton, does not mention Betsey