Sophia Berg Hildebrant

AFFIDAVIT DATED MAY 27, 1870

Affidavit of Sophia B. Hildebrant,

Daughter of C larissa S. Wilson and Granddaughter

of Elizabeth Claypoole (Betsy Ross)

I rem ember to have heard my grandmother Elizabeth Claypoole frequently

narrate the circumstance of her having made the first Star Spangled

Banner; that it was a speciman flag made to the order of the committee of

Congress, acting in con junction with General Washington, who called upon

her personally at her store in Arch Street, below Third Street,

Philadelphia, shortly before the Declara tion of Independence; that she

said that General Washington made a redrawing of the design with his own

hands after some suggestions made by her; and that this specimen flag was

exhibited in Congress by the committee, with a report , and the flag and

report were approved and adopted by the Congress; and she received an

unlimited order from the committee to make flags for the governme nt, and

to my knowledge she continued to manufacture the government flags for

about fifty years, when my mother succeeded her in the business, in which

I assisted. I believe the facts stated in the foregoing article, entitled

"Th e First American Flag, and Who Made It," are all strictly true.

Witness my han d at Philadelphia the Twenty-seventh day of May A.D. 1870.

Witnesses present.

Isaac R. Oakford

Charles H. Evans

S.B. Hildebrandt.

State of Pennsylvania,

City of Philadelphia SS

On the Twenty-seventh day of May A.D. 1870, Before me Charles H. Evans, a

Notary Public in and for the Common-wealth of Pennsylvan ia, duly

commissioned, residing in the said City of Philadelphia personally

appeared the within named Sophia B. Hildebrandt, who being duly affirmed

did depose and say that the statements within certified to by her are all

strict ly true, according to the best of her knowledge and belief, and

that she is a daughter of Clarissa S. Wilson, who was a daughter of

Elizabeth Claypoole.

Affirmed and subscribed before

me, this day and year aforesaid.

Witness my ha nd and Notarial seal.

Charles H. Evans

Notary Public.

S.B. Hildebrant