Betsey or Elizabeth Griscom was the fifth daughter of Samuel and Rebecca (James) Griscom and was born January 1, 1752. She was married when quite young to John Ross, son of the Reverend Aeneas Ross, an Episcopal clergyman of Newcastle, Delaware, whose brother, the Hon. George Ross, became one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. George Ross was interested in the furnishing of cannon-balls, with perhaps other military stores for the Colonial defence, and it was while on guard at night over these, with other young men, that the nephew, John Ross, Betsey’s first husband, received an injury from the effects of which he died in January, 1776. It was during her widowhood that Betsey Ross is said to have made the first Stars and Stripes. For a second husband she married a sea-captain, John or Joseph Ashburne, who died in Mill Prison, England, in 1782. The following year, she married Ashburne’s prison-mate, John Claypoole, who died in 1817. Betsey Ross died in her daughter’s home in Philadelphia January 30, 1836, aged eighty-four. She was buried in the Cemetery of the Society of Free Quakers on South Fifth Street, from which place her remains were transferred in 1857 to Mount Moriah Cemetery. Four of her daughters grew up and married. Betsey Ross’ first husband was an upholsterer. She continued his business and for fifty years was an expert needlewoman, lace-maker and flag-maker. After her death, Mrs. Clarissa Wilson, one of her daughters, succeeded to the business and continued to make flags for the arsenals and navy-yards and for the mercantile marine for many years. But being conscientious on the subject of war, Mrs. Wilson gave up the Government business but continued to make flags for the merchant marine until 1857. The earliest “History of the National Flag,” of which I have knowledge, was written by Captain Schuyler Hamilton, U. S. Army, and published at Philadelphia in 1853, sixty-four years ago. Captain Hamilton makes no mention of Betsey Ross, and does not give to any one person or group of persons the honor of designing our flag. The next “History of Our Flag” was written by Ferdinand L. Sarmiento and published in 1864, during the Civil War, at Philadelphia. Sarmiento, like Captain Hamilton, does not mention Betsey Ross and does not credit the origin of our flag to any one person or to any committee, or group of persons, but considers honor due to many individuals who assisted, more or less, in the =development= of our flag.