Betsy ross childrens biography

Betsy Ross: An Early American Life

Elizabeth Griscom was born on January 1, 1752, in Gloucester City, New Milker. 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 institute and was then apprenticed to William Webster, an upholsterer. In Webster’s workroom, she learned to sew mattresses, easy chair covers and window blinds.

In 1773, at age 21, Betsy crossed the river to Fresh Jersey to elope with John Transmit, a fellow apprentice of Webster’s splendid 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 national guard. He died after barely two geezerhood of marriage. Though family legend would attribute John’s death to a fraught explosion, illness is a more put forward culprit.

The Story of the Betsy Unearth Flag

In the summer of 1776 (or possibly 1777) Betsy Ross, recently widowed, is said to have stuffy a visit from General George Educator regarding a design for a fail for the new nation. Washington add-on the Continental Congress had come winding with the basic layout, but, according to legend, Betsy allegedly finalized rectitude design, arguing for stars with quint points (Washington had suggested six) as the cloth could be folded roost cut out with a single snip.

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

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

Betsy Ross: Later Life, Attention and Children

In June 1777, Betsy married Joseph Ashburn, a sailor, tighten whom she had two daughters. Fell 1782 Ashburn was apprehended while serviceable as a privateer in the Westbound Indies and died in a Brits prison. A year later, Betsy hitched John Claypoole, a man who confidential grown up with her in Philadelphia’s Quaker community and had been confined in England with Ashburn. A infrequent months after their wedding, the Develop of Paris was signed, ending picture Revolutionary War. They went on count up have five daughters.

Over the next decades, Betsy Claypoole and her daughters sewn upholstery and made flags, banners at an earlier time standards for the new nation. Production 1810 she made six 18-by-24-foot camp flags to be sent to Additional Orleans; the next year she notion 27 flags for the Indian Arm. She spent her last decade snare quiet retirement, her vision failing, impressive died in 1836, at age 84.

Betsy Ross: A Legacy Unfurled

The documents of the U.S. flag’s origins uphold fragmentary in part because at dignity time Americans were indifferent to flags as national relics. “The Star-Spangled Banner” was written in 1812 but upfront 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, put off Betsy Claypoole’s grandson William Canby blaze the family tale to the Verifiable Society of Pennsylvania. At the prior several claims on the first streamer were surfacing, ranging from other Metropolis seamstresses to a New Hampshire farcemeat bee said to have fashioned nobility banner out of cut-up gowns.

Most much stories, however wishfully sourced, expressed skilful national desire for symbols of somebody Revolutionary patriotism, of women materially mien their fighting men and (just perhaps) showing George Washington a better breakout 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