So far as I can learn, no mention of Mrs. Ross occurs in any history of our country or in any of the many biographies of Washington, prior to 1870, ninety-three years after the flag was adopted. In that year, however, “Mr. Wm. J. Canby of Philadelphia, read before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, a paper on the history of the American flag, in which he stated that his maternal grandmother, Mrs. John Ross, was the first maker and partial designer of the Stars and Stripes.” Mr. Canby said that Mrs. Ross received a call in June, 1776, from General Washington, Col. George Ross, and Robert Morris, who told her they were a Committee of Congress and wanted her to make a flag from a rough drawing they had, which drawing, upon her suggestion, was redrawn by Washington in pencil. This was prior to the Declaration of Independence. Mr. Canby claimed that he had heard his grandmother tell the story when he was a boy eleven years old, and that three of Mrs. Ross’ daughters then living in 1870 and a niece, aged ninety-five, confirmed his statements. In the picture I have referred to, Mrs. Ross is represented as having a =completed= Stars and Stripes in her lap, although, at the time of the visit of the Committee to her, according to Mr. Canby’s statement, the flag had not even been designed or manufactured. The best and most complete “History of the Flag of the U. S. of America” was written by Rear Admiral George H. Preble, U. S. Navy. The first edition was published in 1872 and the second, revised, edition, in 1880. Rear-Admiral Preble gives Mr. Canby’s story about Mrs. Ross in full, and he considers it probable that Mrs. Ross did manufacture or have manufactured at different times flags of the United States of various designs. His conclusion, however, is that “it will probably never be known who designed our union of stars, the records of Congress being silent on the subject and there being no mention or suggestion of it in any of the voluminous correspondence or diaries of the time, public or private, which have ever been published.” In 1878, a ridiculous pamphlet was published, entitled “The History of the First United States Flag and the Patriotism of Betsey Ross, the Immortal Heroine that Originated the First Flag of the Union. Dedicated to the Ladies of the United States by Col. J. Franklin Reigart.” This was published at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. In Reigart’s book, the claim is made that Mrs. Ross “=originated=” our flag. Mr. Canby, Mrs. Ross’ grandson, had claimed only that she =manufactured= it and that she suggested some changes in the sketch shown her by the committee. In Reigart’s book there is a pretended portrait of Betsey Ross making the first flag. This was really the portrait of a Quaker lady of Lancaster and was taken from a photograph. Mr. Canby repudiated Reigart’s book and said he did not correctly present his grandmother or her claim.