![]() ![]() ![]() After his ship was outgunned and he was imprisoned in England, Ashburn died, leaving his bride a widow. After the death of her first husband, John Ross, in 1776, she married mariner Joseph Ashburn, a privateer who spent much of his time at sea. Having grown up in arguably the most important city across England’s two-dozen Atlantic and Caribbean colonies, the young Elizabeth Griscom surely harbored some sense of her comparative sophistication among British colonists worldwide, but the outbreak of Revolution made her aware of the world in new ways. Trapped for more than two centuries now in her Arch Street parlor, contained there by the thousands of images that have been produced and reproduced on stamps and stationery, towels and teacups, of the beaming seamstress presenting her handiwork to an admiring General Washington (here in the famous painting by Charles Weisgerber), Betsy Ross (or Elizabeth Griscom Ross Ashburn Claypoole, 1752-1836) in real life was very much a woman of the world, no less alert to developments around the globe than we are today. By Marla Miller As I’ve spent the last few months giving talks about Betsy Ross, probably the most-frequently-asked question that gets posed by audience members is, “what surprised you most?” It’s been hard to know where to begin, but lately I’ve been thinking that what surprises me most - or maybe, in truth, which of the various discoveries has pleased me the most - is how broad her horizons really were. ![]()
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