Know Your Neighborhood:  Betsy Ross House  

The Betsy Ross House, 239 Arch St is purported to be the site where the seamstress and flag-maker Betsy Ross (1752-1836) lived when she sewed the first American Flag.  Ross never owned this house, but rented here between the years of 1773 and 1786. The house was built about 1740 and consists of 3-1/2 floors with six rooms plus an attic. Betsy and her husband, John, lived here and ran their upholstery business out of the house as well.

There is almost no doubt that as of 1785, Betsy Ross and her third husband, John Claypoole, lived on the north side of Arch Street, between Second and Third Streets, which is the present location of the Betsy Ross House. Although it cannot be definitively established, the evidence points strongly to the conclusion that Betsy Ross lived either in the house which is now 239 Arch Street or at 241 Arch Street, now the garden of the Betsy Ross House.  

During the last decades of the 18th century and for much of the 19th century, however, it was a small, nondescript, colonial period building. Its rise to fame began in the 1870s, as the nation prepared to celebrate its centennial in 1876. In 1870, Betsy Ross’s grandson, William Canby, delivered a speech at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania claiming that Betsy Ross made the first flag. The American public quickly embraced this family story, for which there is no documentary evidence, as fact. When the Munds, an entrepreneurial German immigrant family, purchased the structure in the mid-1870s, they posted a sign out front: First Flag of the US Made in The House. During 1876 and for another 20 years, they advertised their business highlighting the link to the flag.

When pressure to further develop the 200 block of Arch Street for manufacturing threatened the “flag house,” artist Charles H. Weisberger crafted a plan to save the house. Weisberger painted Birth of Our Nation’s Flag in 1892, depicting Betsy Ross presenting the flag to General George Washington, George Ross, and Robert Morris. He then helped organize the American Flag House and Betsy Ross Memorial Association. The group’s goal was to purchase and maintain 239 Arch Street as a historic site. The Association sold lifetime memberships for ten cents and gave members a certificate featuring Weisberger’s painting. For groups of 30 or more members who formed a club, the Association gave each member a certificate (4th image) and the club 10 color chromolithographs (copies made by stamping stone etchings of the original image) of Birth of Our Nation’s Flag. By 1898, the Association had the funds to purchase the building. During the site’s early years, the front room served as a souvenir shop and the back parlor as the area for telling the Canby story of the flag. By the 1930s, the site was in need of major restoration work, the result of decades of use. In 1937, local radio manufacturer A. Atwater Kent responded to the concerns of local preservationists and offered to pay up to $25,000 to restore the property. The restored house opened with all 8 rooms available for visitation on Flag Day: June 14, 1937. He also purchased the house and its two adjacent properties, which he gave to the City of Philadelphia in 1941.

Original elements were kept wherever possible. Otherwise, materials from demolished period homes were used. A new structure was added in the rear, made from period bricks. The front stairway and dormer were entirely replaced. The front doorway was moved to the opposite corner, and a new window was installed. Kent then purchased the two adjacent properties to develop a "civic garden."

Despite the questions about whether Betsy Ross sewed the flag as well as whether she actually lived at 239 Arch, the Betsy Ross house is one of the most visited sites in Philadelphia.

1875

1890's

1900

1905

Membership certificate

Today

The Betsy Ross House - as it is now, and an artist's sketch of its appearance circa 1765

1937 postcard: Betsy Ross's Bedroom, furnished by the Flag House Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution.  This room contains many articles which belonged to Betsy Ross.