What do you think about when you look at this flag? Some people think about liberty, freedom, pride, and some people even think about the person who sewed it. That is who we are going to tell you about. She was born in Philadelphia on New Years Day, 1752, and how some people look at it, the flag signs her name.
Elizabeth Griscom was the eighth child out of seventeen kids. Her parents, Samuel and Rebecca Griscom were devoted Quakers. Elizabeth Griscom would soon be come to known as Betsy Ross. At an early age Betsy was learning how to sew. She met John Ross on a November night in 1773 and was married in New Jersey. And after marrying John Ross, they had an upholstery business together. John was in the army and died in an explosion in 1776, and Betsy took over the business by her self.
In 1777 Betsy remarried to Joseph Ashburn, a sailor whose ship was captured be the British in 1781, and died in prison.
English: The "Betsy Ross Flag" flying outside City...
Betsy Ross 1777, a ca. 1920 depiction by Jean Leon...
Betsy Ross presenting the first American flag to G...In 1783, Betsy married again; this time to John Claypool who met Betsy threw her previous husband. He died in 1817.
She became a well known seamstress and flag maker through out her life, but at age 84 Betsy Ross died on January 30th 1836. But in 1870, her grandson, William Canby told a story that Betsy had told him, about how she made the first American flag. According to Betsy's story, a committee leaded by George Washington asked Betsy Ross to design and make the first American flag in 1776. Washington showed her a design with six pointed stars but Betsy Ross suggested making the five-point star instead. The committee disapproved the five-pointed star and said that it would be too complicated to make. Right then and there,