The lore of the Betsy Ross story is as American as apple pie, but the flags from the era that still exist today tell a remarkably different story of the making of Old Glory.
As the story goes. . . it was summer in 1776 when General George Washington and other Founders from the Continental Congress walked into respected seamstress Betsy Ross's Philadelphia home with a layout of the first American flag. She finalized the design - opting for five-pointed stars instead of six-pointed and then made our nation's flag.
The problem, the flag design of 13 stars in a circle didn’t exist, according to scholars.
“Pretty well known to be myth,” said Jeff Bridgman, lecturer, researcher and largest antique flag collector in the U.S.
“The story wasn't even told until about 1870 when her grandson wrote a story to the Pennsylvania Historical Society that for the first time detailed that meeting,” said Bridgman.
Here's the thing most history books leave out: The Continental Congress's first Flag Act in 1777 stated our flag will have 13 alternating red and white stripes and 13 white stars over blue. The act did not say where to put those stars.
Bridgman, who curated the first ever 13-star flag exhibition at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philly, says none of our first flags had the stars in all aligned in a circle.
In fact, he says there was no formal design.
“All sorts of patterns where used. There's a circle with one in the center, a 3-2-3-2-3 pattern of rows, there are stars forming one big star called the great star pattern. At least 80-some different star patterns are known. There was no official star pattern for the American flag until 1912,” said Bridgman.
Furthermore, several paintings commissioned in the early 1800s—like the 1810 painting called “The Surrender of Lord Cornwallis”—show a flag with stars arranged in a rectangle with one star in the middle.
So how did the Ross story come about?
Bridgman says it was first published by Ross's grandson about 100 years later as an oral history from Betsy.
A man named Charles Weisgerber first painted the tale in 1893, bought Ross's old house and opened it to the public.
From there, the story became legend.
While Bridgman says there is no evidence to support the “Betsy Ross Flag”, there is a chance Ross played a role in making an original flag.
She was one of the top seamstresses in Philadelphia at the time, and she did go to church with General Washington, according to Bridgman.
Choosing her to make an important flag would make sense. To what extent? We may never know.