MISS ELIZABETH GRISCOM was born 1742, in Philadelphia, and was married in 1762 to Mr. John Ross, a merchant of that city. She was a strict member of The Society of Friends, and by them always called “BETSY ROSS.” She was unsurpassed in fine needlework, and well known throughout Philadelphia and New York cities as the most artistic upholstress in America. She used the most superior, richest and finest of imported embroidered velvets, satins, silks and woolens, that were brought to this country by the packet ships of Caleb and Thomas Cope, Boyd & Reed, and John Ross, agreeably to her express orders; and she had a dozen or more of her sisters, daughters and nieces constantly employed sewing and finishing variegated needlework, in the very best manner, as she directed them; and thus no other upholsterer could possibly compete with her. She was a natural artist, an inventive genius, who fully understood the best effects of complimentary colors, and the grandeur of the primary colors; yet, strange as it may appear, though one of the plainest of “QUAKERS,” she invariably used cloths of the very _brightest_, and in every instance the _primary colors combined, so as to be distinguished from all other objects_, and she quickly judged and comprehended the styles that would best please her customers. Her brilliant draperies and tri-colored curtains, in the public halls, hotel parlors, and drawing rooms, were greatly admired; whilst General Washington, General Hand, Thomas Mifflin, George Clymer, Jared Ingersoll, J. Koch, Gouveneur Morris, Robert Morris, Judge James Wilson, Frederick A. Muhlenberg, Joseph Wilson, Caleb and Thomas Cope, Thomas Wilson, Timothy Matlack, James Trimble, and William Shippen, are some of the names on her store-books, as her generous and kind friends and patrons, whose heirs still possess beautiful curtains and magnificent quilts of variegated silks and satins, unsurpassed, at this day, for beauty of utility, justness of composition, that none but a perfect artist could produce; and the constant use of materials of primary colors were her praise, excellence, and fame.