Three confirmed primary documents on the origin of the American flag. The Flag Resolution of 1777. The Hopkinson design claim of 1780. The Pennsylvania State Navy Board payment records confirming Ross made flags. The legend versus what the primary record shows.
The story of Betsy Ross sewing the first American flag was not publicly told until 1870, thirty-four years after her death. In March of that year, her grandson William J. Canby presented a paper to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania recounting what he said Ross and other family members had told him in childhood: that in late May or early June 1776, George Washington, Robert Morris, and George Ross visited her upholstery shop at 239 Arch Street in Philadelphia, showed her a rough sketch of a flag design, and commissioned her to make it.
Canby's account contains specific details, that Ross suggested five-pointed stars instead of six-pointed, and demonstrated she could cut a perfect five-pointed star with a single snip of scissors. The account was supported by affidavits from other family members collected in the 1870s. Canby was eleven years old when Ross died in 1836. The account was based on childhood recollections of stories told to him. No document from 1776 or 1777 has been found to corroborate it.
The first official action by any American government body on the design of a national flag is the Flag Resolution of June 14, 1777, recorded in the Journals of the Continental Congress, Volume 8, page 464, at the Library of Congress. The full text of the resolution:
Resolved, That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.
The resolution specifies thirteen stripes alternating red and white, and thirteen stars in a blue field. It does not specify who made the flag. It does not specify the arrangement of the stars. It does not credit any designer. It did not name Betsy Ross. The arrangement of the stars varied widely among early American flags. The circular arrangement now associated with Ross was one of several in use.
Congress did not adopt an official flag until June 1777, more than a year after the date the Ross family story places Washington's supposed visit. The Flag Resolution of June 14, 1777 is the first documented meeting, discussion, or debate by Congress about a national flag.
The primary source with the strongest documentary support for any individual's flag design claim belongs to Francis Hopkinson, a New Jersey delegate to the Continental Congress, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and the subject of Forgotten Founders Episode 24 in this archive. In May 1780, Hopkinson submitted an invoice to the Board of Admiralty requesting payment for his design of "the flag of the United States of America," among other devices including the Great Seal and the seal of the Board of Admiralty.
His requested compensation was a quarter cask of public wine. The Board of Treasury rejected the claim on the grounds that he was a paid public servant. The 1780 letter is at the Library of Congress in the Journals of the Continental Congress. The Library of Congress's own "Today in History" page for June 14 states: "Scholars credit the flag's design to Francis Hopkinson." Hopkinson's claim is documented in a primary source from 1780. The Ross claim is documented in a family account from 1870.
What primary sources do confirm: Elizabeth (Betsy) Griscom Ross Ashburn Claypoole (1752–1836) was a skilled upholsterer and seamstress who operated a shop in Philadelphia. She was well-connected to prominent Philadelphians, her late first husband John Ross was the nephew of George Ross, the Declaration signer. Her shop produced flags, uniforms, and equipment for Continental forces. Pennsylvania State Navy Board records from 1777 confirm payment to "Elizabeth Ross" for flags. She was one of at least several Philadelphia seamstresses who made flags during the Revolution.
The record confirms she made flags. It does not confirm she designed the flag. Those are different claims, and the primary sources support only the first. The Betsy Ross House at 239 Arch Street in Philadelphia is documented as an authentic eighteenth-century structure and is a legitimate historic site. Whether the scene Canby described took place there is not established by any contemporary primary source.