Birth Of The Flag

On Arch street, below Third, says tha Phüadelphia Press, stands a little old building, tvvo stories and a half high, bearing a sign which inforcns the passer-by that within the house was made the iirst American flag and that in these days he can buy beer or liquor there. Early in 1777 a committee appointod by the Continental Congress to select a design for a National flag went with General Washington to the little shop of Mrs. Elizabeth Ross, at 'Xi'.t Arch street, to have their ideas embodied in bunting. Mrs. Ross was a müliner, whose principal business was among the Quaker ladies, and in the projecting window were hung the correct forms of the brown and drab bonnets, about whose make-up the women of the Friends' Society wcre and are as particular as the lady who now stops one's view at the theater. General Washington sketchcd jon a scrap of paper the design agreed upon. There were thirteen stripes of altérnate white and red, and in the blue unión were to be thirteen white stars ranged in a circle. There is a tradition that General Washington ordered that the stars have six points, and that Mrs. Ross argued that the stars in the sky seemed to have only flve points. She won the day by showing her visitors how a star with five points could be made with one clip of her scissors. The flag was made in her little back room, and on July 14 of the same year Congress adopted the design as the National banner. The building has changed but little since then. A large tree which stood in front of it during the Revolution survived until 1876, when it became daagerous and was cut down. But the house stands as it then did. Even Mrs. Ross' show window is preserved and the wooden shutters on the second-story windows and the dormer window in the sharply-sloping roof are the same that looked down on Arch street a hundred years ago. The bar-room would even now be recognized as Mrs. Ross' shop if one of that committee could now revisit it. Passing from this room through a narrow entry and up two steps, one enters Ms. Ross' work room, where, without doubt, the flag was cut out and sewed together. It is even now a queer old room. On its furthest end is the old fire-place now covered with wallpapei but showing at the top a row of the blue and white tiles which once surrounded it. Built into one corner is a three-cornered wooden cupboard. The very locks and knobs on the doors are of the pattern of the last century. The stairways of this house are all winding and very narrow. That leading to the cellar is very steep. The ftttic is still floored with the puncheon boards which once were the only flooring in the house - an inch thick and eighteen inches wide. The only new thing about the whole structure is a back-kitchen built within the last few years. llrs. Amelia Mund, a comely Germán widow, who keeps the tavern and owns the property, told what she knew of the history of the building since the time of Mrs. Ross. "It was occupied by a tailor's shop for many years, and my husband bought it over forty-five years ago. Neither he nor I would allow any thing to be changed, unless an absolute necessity to keep the building from going to pieces. It is strong and well built and has needed very little repairing. When the floor of what was the shop was taken up some years ago the original floor was taken away, as it could not be kept from falling into the cellar. People came from long distances to get pieces oí it as relies, and one gentleman had a board made into a table and draped it with the American flag. The house until two or three weeks ago never had a sign to teil people that the first American flag was made here, but I thought people ought to know Anyway, I've had no end of visitors to inquire about the old house. Not many of them were Philadclphians, for they don't seem to care much about the relies of the revolution nowadays, but a great many Western poople and visitors to the city have come to this house, and taken as much interest In it as they did in Independence Hall."