Coming to you live from the blog's department of "Did That Actually Happen?" is the latest in unexpected developments. I check my blog's statistics regularly, and I recently noticed a curious uptick in hits on my 2020 post about the Dorsey Brothers. I wasn't sure why that would be until I received a private message on Facebook. The person contacting me was Tommy Dorsey's granddaughter Joanne - someone found my blog and shared the post with the surviving family members! She was able to give me a little bit of information that was missing from my post and had nice things to say about my work. As you can imagine, it was pretty exciting to hear from someone connected with one of my subjects.
Who knows, maybe it'll happen again.
Also, you might have noticed another link over on my sidebar - the blog now has a store! Well, sort of. It's all stuff I designed, mostly history themed, and you can get my designs on a variety of shirts and other products. I don't actually have anything for sale with the blog's logo on it, but if that's something anyone would want I can certainly make that happen. Please click on the link sometime and see if there's anything that catches your eye; any profits I make go toward paying my bills so I can keep doing this project that I love.
Today's post is a name I'm sure most if not all of my readers will recognize. Americans all learn in elementary school that Betsy Ross is credited with designing and making the first flag for the United States. She was indeed a real person, and her house in Philadelphia is one of the popular tourist stops in "America's Most Historic Square Mile." Much of the information I'm about to share with you actually comes from the signage throughout her house. I didn't actually get to go inside, because of time constraints on the day of my being there, but I'm hoping to make another trip and get more photographs to add to this post in the future.
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| The marker stands within the grounds of the Betsy Ross House at 239 Arch Street |
As I said, Betsy was a Quaker, so it caused quite a stir when she fell in love with John Ross, the son of an Anglican priest. In 1773, when Betsy was 21, they eloped in New Jersey. As a result, she was expelled from the Quaker congregation and fell out of favor with her family. The newlyweds formed an upholstery business of their own and became members of Philadelphia's Christ Church - the same one which was attended by many of what were about to become the famous names of the American Revolution. John joined up with the Pennsylvania Provincial Militia to fight in the war, which began after they had been married for two years; in January 1776, at the age of just 24, he was killed. He was a munitions guard, so the cause of death may have been a gunpowder explosion, but this is unconfirmed. He left Betsy a young widow with no children.
It's unclear just how much truth there is in the famous story of Betsy's flag. Her late husband's uncle was George Ross, a signer of the Declaration of Independence - that much we know for sure. According to the story, when the Continental Congress wanted a flag designed for the fledgling nation, Ross recommended his late nephew's widow; maybe he respected her skill, maybe he wanted to give her some extra income, maybe both. The story likes to say that Ross brought George Washington to meet Betsy personally and go over the nature of the design, which may or may not have happened and that she was the one who convinced the father of our country that five-pointed stars were better than the six-pointed stars he was envisioning. The truth is that we'll never really know exactly how the whole thing went down, because there are no concrete records of it.
In fact, the bulk of the popular story comes to us in the form of a presentation given by William Canby in 1870. Who was William Canby? Betsy's grandson. He gave a statement to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, recounting the version of events which he said his grandmother told him when he was six years old, and corroborated by the memories of three of his aunts. You can probably guess why this isn't considered rock-solid evidence.
But it's still a good story. As my favorite video game character says, "That's all history is - the best tales." Someone told this story and someone else retold it and it became legend, and legends are hard to separate from facts. Even at the Betsy Ross House, they admit that the truth is a little on the fuzzy side; the first marker when you enter the house states that "The Stars and Stripes are an important symbol of America, and the Betsy Ross story has become an enduring part of American memory. As our nation develops and changes, so do the meanings of the American flag and the story of its first maker."
Anyway, continuing with what we do know of Betsy's life, she really was hired by the Continental Congress to make flags - specifically, for the Pennsylvania Navy Board. Of that there is confirmed evidence in the form of surviving invoices. A year after she may or may not have hand-sewn the first incarnation of Old Glory, she married again; her second husband was Joseph Ashburn, a mariner, with whom she had two daughters. The elder one died in infancy, although the younger daughter Eliza survived. Joseph's ship was captured by the Royal Navy in 1780 and he was arrested for treason (to Britain, not the United States). He died in prison in Plymouth, England, leaving Betsy a widow for the second time before she had reached her thirtieth birthday.
In 1783 Betsy married for the third and final time. With John Claypoole she had five more daughters - Clarissa, Susanna, Jane, Rachel, and Harriet, although Harriet died as a baby. She left the tiny house on Arch Street and they raised the family in a bigger residence on Second Street in Philadelphia. Sorrow struck Betsy's life again in 1793, when she lost both of her parents and one of her sisters in a yellow fever epidemic; I'm not sure how well she had reconciled with her family after being cast out of the Quakers for her first marriage, but I can only imagine their deaths had to cause her pain regardless. Her husband Joseph's health was also in decline, though he lived until 1817. Betsy retired from the upholstery business in 1827, handing it off to her daughter Clarissa, and then spent the rest of her life living with her daughters Susanna and Jane. She was completely blind by the time she passed away on January 30, 1836.
Betsy and her third husband were originally buried elsewhere, but their remains have been reinterred on the grounds of the Betsy Ross House on Arch Street in Philadelphia. Admittedly, it's not absolutely certain that this is the house where she actually lived; there is a possibility that she lived in the house next door, which has since been torn down. But if it's not the exact spot where she lived, it's extremely close. The Betsy Ross House continues to pay tribute to her life and her legend, providing a colonial role model for young women - a business owner, a working mother, and a woman who triumphed in the face of tragedy.
Sources and Further Reading:
The Betsy Ross House at Historic Philadelphia, Inc.
Canby, William. "A History of the Flag of the United States." Presented to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, March 1870; reproduced by USHistory.org.
Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.
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