Famous Person Best Love Rating :
Famous Person:
Birth Name : Elizabeth ("Betsy") Griscom / Stage Name : Betsy Ross
Famous For:
Sewed the first American flag
Achievements :
Sewed the first American flag
Authors Description:
Betsy Ross was born in Philadelphia on New Year's Day, 1752. Her mother and father, Samuel and Rebecca Griscom, were devout Quakers. Her father was a carpenter. Ross supposedly went to Friends School for her early education. Her three marriages produced seven daughters and are important to understanding whether her story is fact or historical fiction. John Ross her first husband was not a Quaker. Her parents disapproved of him. This forced them to elope. When her husband was killed in a militia gunpowder accident, she inherited his upholstery business. She became a well known seamstress and flag maker. At the age of 84, Betsy Ross related the American flag making story to her 11 year old grandson, John Canby. George Washington approached her to make the first flag because of her skills and her relationship to George Ross, her first husband's uncle and one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. It is believed that the original flag had stars and stripes. The story that was told stated that General Washington and his committee came into Ross' house and asked her to make a flag similar to the one that they had sketched. The legend, also, is interesting in the fact that Betsy talked George Washington into using five pointed stars instead of six pointed stars because they were easier to make. Ross, also, became the official flag maker of the Pennsylvania Navy. The Stars and Stripes design was adopted by Congress in 1777. Betsy Ross died in 1836. Her role in American history is legendary.
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