The True Story of the American Flag. Fow John Henry

based upon tales told from memory by relatives, no other proofs have ever been found, and a careful and thorough research fails to discover any. In 1878 a pamphlet was issued from the printing office of the State printer at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, written by a Mr. Reigart, based upon the above claim, and calling Mrs. Ross “the immortal heroine that originated the first flag of the Union.” The book had an alleged portrait of Betsy Ross making the first flag; but it was afterwards discovered that it was really the portrait of an old Quaker lady who was living in Lancaster at the time the book was written. The book was so unreliable that it made the Ross claim appear ridiculous in the eyes of the public.

      If Mrs. Ross made a flag in an Arch street house, as claimed, it was made after a design that had been conceived and born somewhere else, and her contribution was no more than her labor in sewing on some stars, the same labor that is given by any girl or woman who works in a flag manufactory. Even according to the paper which was read before the Society in 1870 it is admitted that a design made by someone else was taken to her, but that she made certain changes in it. Now, that is all there is in the Betsy Ross claim; yet the growing youths of the nation are being misled and taught an historical untruth when it is asserted that Mrs. Ross designed, originated and made the first American flag, and a lithograph has been issued showing that historical untruth, which has not as good a foundation, in fact, as the two paintings to which I have referred, because the events sought to be depicted in those two cases did happen. All the sentiment exhibited over the Betsy Ross story is lost upon those who have looked the matter up, and are conversant with the history and growth of our national emblem, which I will now take up. Those seeking for more elaborate details are referred to Bancroft’s History of the United States; Lossing’s Field Book of the Revolution; Philadelphia Times, April 6, 1877; The American, The Colonial and the Pennsylvania Archives; Journals of Congress, Vols. 1 and 2; Preble’s History of the Flag; Cooper’s Naval History; Life of John Adams; Hamilton and Sarmiento’s Histories of our Flag; Sparks’ and Washington Irving’s Lives of Washington; Washington’s own letters, diaries and other writings, and William Cullen Bryant’s History of the United States, in which pages 420 and 421 of the third volume he devotes to a history of the flag, but nowhere does he mention the Ross claim. He evidently, like myself, could not find any authority for it, yet his history was published in 1879—nine years after the Ross claim was made. There are many other authorities, but not one of them gives her the credit claimed, and all of them except those written since the claim was made, leaving out the Bryant history, do not even mention her name.

      A claim similar to the one made by Mr. Canby on behalf of Betsy Ross, was made by a woman named Elizabeth Montgomery, daughter of Captain Montgomery, of the armed Brig Nancy. She claimed that a flag, “stars and stripes,” was made early in July, 1776, by a young man on her father’s brig while it was in port at St. Thomas; see “Reminiscences of Wilmington, ancient and new,” printed in 1851, on pages 176 to 179; but her claim it proved to be absolutely false, as a reference to the American Archives, vol. vi, page 1132, fourth series, will show that the Brig Nancy, Captain Montgomery, was destroyed at Cape May, June 29, 1776, to keep her from being captured by the British.

      At the outbreak of our Revolutionary struggle the different colonies had flags of their own design, which, if grouped together, would have reminded one of Joseph’s coat, embellished with Latin and other mottoes. At the battle of Bunker Hill the Americans fought without a flag, although Botta in his history of the American Revolution says that there was one with the words “An Appeal to Heaven” on one side, and the Latin inscription “Qui transtulit sustinet” upon the other (see Fig. 2). In Lossing’s field book of the American Revolution, Vol. 1, page 541, he states that an old lady named Manning informed him that the Americans did have a flag at the battle, of which the field was blue and the union white, having in it the Red Cross of St. George and a green pine tree (see Fig. 3); but this cannot be considered an authority any more than Trumbull’s picture of the Battle in the Rotunda of the capital at Washington. He depicts the American flag carried in that battle as something which no one ever saw or even heard of, to wit: a red flag with a white union, having in it a green pine tree (see Fig. 4).

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Fig. 3

Fig. 4

Fig. 5

      Frothingham in his history of the siege of Boston says that there was a flag over Prescott’s redoubt having upon it the words “Come if you dare;” but there is no authority given for the statement. As a matter of fact, it might have been, for at that period flags were used as ensigns, with different sentences upon them, such as “Liberty and Union,” “An Appeal to Heaven,” “Liberty or Death,” “An Appeal to God.” Several such flags were captured by the British and mentioned in the English journals of that period (see Figs. 5