The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1904-06-12

pirate Captain has been referred to. She was Betsy
Griscom, daughter of respectable Quaker parents,
and born on Race-st. not two blocks distant from the
Flag House. As a girl she was known as the Rebel
Quaker" Though her family were people of peace,
she openly and avowedly professed the rebel faith.
Her husband. John Ross, was also a patriot of this
stamp. and so ardent a patriot that he was one of the
first of the Colonial martyrs. While secretly storing
gunpowder in a house at the foot of Arch-st., the powder
exploded and placed him eternally, if irregularly,
upon the roll of history.
1t was in her early widowhood that Betsy made the
first flag, and her fame and personal charms won her a
second husband in Captain Ashburn. The possessor
of a letter of marque, he harassed the English shipping
with his privateer until he and his crew were over
come after a gallant fight, and taken as prisoners to
England. In Mill Prison, London, he sickened and
died. His faithful friend and fellow prisoner, one
Claypole, watched over him in his last moments, and
to him Ashburn said that his last and dearest thoughts
were of his wife Betsy, and that Claypole. if he ever
was set free. must go to her and give this loving message.
The present caretaker of the Flag House, who feels
deeply the human throb of this sad event, AYERS that
it is an episode which should inspire any writer for
the press to great lines. In this he is undoubtedly
correct, that any reader can picture the sympathetic
scene for himself. Claypole dutifully bore the message
to Betsy, and their tender consonance of grief over
the death of the gallant Captain resulted in her third
marriage, the bridegroom being Claypole.
After his marriage he again enlisted, and was under
Washington through the trying winter at Valley
Forge. Thus, also according to the fervent caretaker,
Betsy Ross was the wife of no less than three different
patriots who offered their lives for their country's
flag, a record of matrimonial patriotism which history
may possibly be able to equal but cannot surpass,
History declares that the Stars and Stripes were in
common if not general use nearly a year before a
resolution of Congress, in June I777, proclaimed them
to be the flag of the United States of America. Captain
Hugh Montgomery is avered to have hoisted on the
brig Nancy a flag made from a written description
sent to him as early as March, I777.
AT the first anniversary of the Declaration of indie
Pendence. on July 4, 1777, at Philadelphia. all the
armed ships and galeys in the river were drawn up
before the city dressed in the gayeSt manner with the
colors of the United States"
Their first actual use in the war, however, was due
to Paul Jones. He claimed that it was his good for
tune to be the first to display the Stars and Stripes
on a naval vessel, and the claim was not denied.
This vessel was his ship the Alfred. The same
day that Congress adopted the flag it appointed him
by resolution to the command of the Ranger. He
promptly hoisted the flag upon that vessel. and pro-
ceeded, in Quiberon Bay, in obtaining the first salute
to the flag ever given by a foreign power.
Il am happy" he says in a letter to the Naval Com
mittee, to have it in my power to congratulate on my
having seen the American flag, for the first time, recog-
nized in the fullest and completest manner by the flag
of France. l was off this bay on the 18th instant, and
sent my boat in the next day to know if the Admiral
would return my salute. He answered that he would
return to me as the senior Continental officer in
Europe the same salute as he was authorized to return
to an Admiral of Holland, or any other Republic.
which was four guns less than the salute given. l
hesitated at this, for l had demanded gun for gun"
He finally, after inquiry, accepted this offer as it was
an acknowledgment of American independence.
The flag first appeared in a land battle August ?,
I777, at Fort Schuyler. The garrison, being without
a flag, made one themselves, cutting up shirts for the
white stripes, joining bits of scarlet cloth for the red,
and using Captain Swartout's blue cloak for the blue
ground.
The first formal use of the official flag in battle,
however. was at the Battle of Brandywine, September
II, I777, eight days after the decree adopting it had
been promulgated.