Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1904-06-14

The only available material lay in de-
scriptions of her and daguerreotypes of
her four daughters. History declared
her to have been dark Of complexion,
auburn as TO hair, short and plump as
TO figure, and twenty-four years old.
with these substantial facts. and the
four daguerreOtypes. Weisgerber's
brush limned a composite Betsy Ross,
which was duly submitted TO the as
sembled descendants, was criticized BY
those who had seen her, and modified
accordingly. 1t was then used in the
Unknown picture The Birth Of Our
Nations Flag" showing Washington.
Morris. Ross and herself displaying the
flag that she had just finished, which
had the place OF honor in the Pennsyl-
vania building at the Worlds Fair OF
1898. There was SO great demand for
copies of this picture that the artist
sold them by thousands. Thence arose
a plan by which half the proceeds OF
such sales were to be devoted to the
rescue of the house and the American
Flag House. and the Betsy Ross Me-
mortal Association ~as formed with
such well-known names as those OF
Or. Morgan Dix, DR.. Fetterolf OF Girard
College, John Wanamaker, General
Howard. DR.. Henry c. McCook and
many others. as charter members.
Up to date. nine hundred twenty-five
thousand copies of the picture have
been sold by the association at ten
cents each to purchasers from all
states and all countries The Purchase
Fund now exceeds twenty-five thou
sand dollars, and when it reaches
twenty-five thousand the transfer OF
the property will be made to the Asso-
citation under the existing option, and
the gift OF it made to the nation. The
hope of the Association is that Con-
gress will purchase headjoining prop
erty as far as the adjacent streets, and
thus leave the house in the center of an
ornamental square measuring four
hundred feet by four hundred feet as
an enduring national memorial to the
flag.
Mr. Canby's indignant denial that
Mrs. Ross was directly or indirectly in
any way affiliated to pirate Captain
has been referred to. She was Betsy
Griscom, daughter of respectable
Quaker parents. and born on Race
street. not two blocks distant from the
Flag House. AS a girl she was known
as the Rebel Quaker" Though her
family we're people of peace, she openly
and avowedly profesSed the rebel faith.
Her husband, John Ross, was also a pa
trIot of this stamp and 50 ardent a pa
triot that he was one of the first of the
Colonial martyrs. While secretly stor-
ing gunpowder in a house at the foot of
Arch street, 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 second
| husband i'll Captain Ashburn. The
I,ossessor of a letter of marque, he
! harassed the English shipping with
! his privateer until he and his crew
were overcome 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 C!aypole. 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 fervenI
| caretakcr Betsy Ross was the wife of
! no less than three different patriots
| who offered their lives for their coun-
| try's flag. 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, i'll June III, proclaimed
| them to be the flag of the United States
of America. Captain Hugh Mont
gOmery is averred to have hoisted on
the brig Nancy a flag made from
written description sent to him as early
as March, III.
At the first anniversary of the
Declaration of Independence, on July
4. i777, at Philadelphia, "all the armed
ships and galleys in the river We're
drawn up before the city and 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 fortune 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 ap-
pointed him by resolution to the COM
mand of the Ranger. He promptly
hoisted the flag upon that vessel. and
proceeded. in Quiberon Bay, in obtain
ing the first salute to the flag ever
given nv a foreign mower