Betsy Ross and the American Flag

AFFIDAVIT DATED JUNE 3, 1870

Affidavit of Margaret Donaldson Boggs, Daughter of
Sarah Donaldson, who was a Sister of
Elizabeth Claypoole (Betsy Ross)

I, Margaret Boggs, of the City of Philadelphia, Widow, do hereby certify that I have heard my aunt, Elizabeth Claypoole say many times, that she made the first Star Spangled Banner that ever was made with her own hands; that she made it on the order of General Washington and a committee of the Continental Congress, who together called personally upon her at her house on the North side Arch Street below Third Street, Philadelphia, some time previously to the Declaration of Independence. That they brought with them a drawing, roughly made, of the proposed flag; that she said it was wrong, and proposed alterations, which Washington and the Committee approved; that one of these alterations was in regard to the number of points of the star; that she said it should be five-pointed, and showed them how to fold a piece of paper in the proper manner, and with one cut of the scissors, to make a five-pointed star; that General Washington sat at a table in her back parlor, where they were, and made a drawing of the flag embodying her suggestions, and that she made the flag according to this drawing, and the committee carried it before Congress, by whom it was approved and adopted. That she then received orders to make flags for the government as fast as possible; and from that time forward, for upwards of fifty years she made all the flags made for the United States in Philadelphia, and largely for the other naval stations. I was for many years a member of her family, and aided her in the business. I believe the facts stated in the foregoing article entitled "The First American Flag and Who Made It," which has now been read to me are all strictly true.

---

---