Betsy Ross 1752-1836
- Born on January 1st 1752
- Birth name was Elizabeth Grincom
- After her schooling,Betsy did an apprenticeship at a local upholstery shop (sewing needed items and making flags)
- During her time there, she fell in love with her first husband John Ross
- November 1773 Betsy and John eloped in New Jersey since it was frowned upon to inter denominational marriage
- Later opened their own upholstery shop
- John Ross was mortally injured, resulting in his death, in an explosion in mid January
- Shortly after becoming widowed,Ross returned to the Quaker Fold
- Though it was forbidden for Quakers to bare arms, when Fighting Quakers or Free Quakers supported the war they came together; Ross joined the group
- In 1776 while her business was struggling,George Washington,whom she knew quite well, came into her shop and requested that she create a flag with six pointed stars
- After a while discussing the look of the flag they decided that the flag would have a five pointed star.
- Winter of 1777, Betsy remarried to Joseph Ashburn,a sea captain, to couple had two children together.
- Shortly after their marriage,Ashbrun was captured on a trip to gather supplies by the British and was sent to the Old Mill Prison where later he died in 1782; a little while after the surrender of Cornwallis in Yorktown.
- Not long after learning about her 2nd husbands death, Betsy remarried a third time to John Claypoole whom she had another five children with.
- Ross retired after many years of working within the local shops
- In 1834, there were only two Free Quakers still attending the meeting house; it was then agreed that the usefulness of the meeting house was finally at an end.
- The closing and locking of the doors symbolized the closing of an era.
- Betsy Ross died at the old age of 84.