Betsy Ross House: Seamstress of the Stars and Stripes

Why is it significant?

Stand before the narrow two-and-a-half-story red-brick house at two thirty-nine Arch Street, with its wooden pent eaves and twelve-paned sash windows. This modest colonial dwelling was the upholstery shop and home of Elizabeth Griscom Ross, known across the globe as Betsy Ross.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Stand before the narrow two-and-a-half-story red-brick house at two thirty-nine Arch Street, with its wooden pent eaves and twelve-paned sash windows. This modest colonial dwelling was the upholstery shop and home of Elizabeth Griscom Ross, known across the globe as Betsy Ross.

According to family accounts, in late spring of seventeen seventy-six, George Washington, Robert Morris, and George Ross visited her upholstery parlor with a rough sketch of a national flag featuring six-pointed stars. Betsy demonstrated how to fold a piece of paper and, with a single snip of her shears, create a neat, symmetrical five-pointed star, convincing Washington on the spot.

Betsy was a fiercely independent artisan and Quaker who was read out of the Society of Friends for marrying John Ross, an Anglican. She lost three husbands over the course of the Revolution, yet continued sewing naval banners and bed hangings to support her seven daughters.

Walk around the corner toward the timeless cobblestones of Elfreth's Alley.