On January 1, 1752, the storied seamstress of the first stars-and-stripes, Betsy Ross, was born. The eighth of 17 children born to Rebecca and Samuel Griscom, Betsy moved with her family to the future capital of the Revolution, Philadelphia, in 1755. As a young adult, Betsy entered the upholstery business with her first husband, John Ross, whose uncle was a member of the Flag Committee. Legend has it that George Ross visited Betsy’s upholstery shop in 1777 with Continental Congressman Robert Morris and General George Washington, Commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, who asked Betsy to sew a flag that matched a sketch in his pocket – 13 red and white stripes and 13 stars. To Washington’s question of whether she could complete the task, Ross purportedly responded, “I do not know, but I will try.” The story is uncorroborated by any evidence other than the testimony of Ross’s grandchildren (Ross’s grandson William Canby was the first to tell it), but historians believe it’s plausible, given that Ross received a large sum from the state Navy Board that year for making flags; that many upholsterers made flags, tents, and uniforms during the war; and that George Ross was a member of the Flag Committee.
Whether Ross actually sewed the first stars-and-stripes flag, she was touched by the war in other, significant ways, as well. All three of her husbands served in the Revolution: A member of the local militia, John Ross died in 1776 when gunpowder exploded while he was guarding munitions. Though Betsy remarried in 1777, her second husband, Joseph Ashburn, was taken prisoner at sea and died in a British prison in 1782. Ross learned the news of her second husband’s death the same year, from fellow prisoner and old friend John Claypoole, who became her third husband in 1783. Ross far outlived Claypoole, dying in 1836, at the ripe old age of 84, in Philadelphia, where she lived with her daughter and remained an active member of the Free Quaker Meetinghouse.
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