In April, 1783, the Stars and Stripes were put to their first national use in the demonstration for peace throughout the new nation. The Flag of Peace was the name given to it in this widespread employment of the ensign.
Two weeks after this occasion Betsy Ross (Ashburn) and John Claypoole were married.
By this marriage five children were born. One, Clarissa by name, the first child of this marriage, married a Mr. Wilson and succeeded to the business of upholstering and making American flags. Subsequently Mrs. Wilson became a member of the Society of Friends, and relinquished the business of making flags for the United States Army and Navy, and thus after many years, the making of the American flags passed from the house and family of Betsy Ross.
Clarissa was thirty-one years old when her father died from war-inflicted diseases.
After about eighty years of making American flags for the United States Government, the contracts passed from the Ross family, when Clarissa Claypoole Wilson made the following public declarations: “From conscientious motives ceased to furnish flags for military and naval purposes,” and “retired from the business on account of conscientious scruples.”[scruples.”]
Thus the Ross family discontinued to fill Government contracts a quarter of a century after the death of Betsy Ross.
During all the eighty years women and girls were exclusively employed in making flags, mostly daughters and granddaughters of Betsy Ross and her neighbors, as the work grew in volume.
So the tradition of Betsy Ross, as the maker of the first American flag, known as the Stars and Stripes, has quite as interesting a sequel in the action of her daughter.