Mary Pickersgill’s American Flag

The Star-Spangled Banner

Dec 31, 2006 Mary Trotter Kion

Mary Pickersgill, during the War of 1812, is commissioned to make an American flag to fly above Fort McHenry

Fort McHenry and Baltimore

In 1813, during the American War of 1812, Major George Armistead commissioned Mary Pickersgill to construct a flag to fly above Fort McHenry. Armistead was in command of Fort McHenry at this time. The fort guarded the waters leading to Baltimore in Maryland.

A Household of Flag Makers

Mrs. Pickersgill, with the help of her thirteen-year-old daughter, Caroline, and other helpers made this flag using four hundred yards of wool bunting. Included in those that assisted Mrs. Pickersgill were the lady's three nieces, Margaret, Eliza, and Jane Young.

Rebecca Young, Mary Pickersgill's mother, who was a member of the Pickersgill household was also a flag maker and surely assisted in the flag's making. Also members of the household was at least one slave woman owned by Pickersgill as well as a free black woman. It has been assumed that these two women also assisted in making this flag as time was of the essence.

As Mary's mother was a flag maker, she came to it naturally. Mother and daughter together set up their flag making business after both were widowed. Mary Pickersgill was widowed in 1805 while living in Philadelphia. Two years later, in 1807, she began her business in Baltimore, Maryland. Pickersgill's mother had at one time made a flag for George Washington for his headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Mary Pickersgill's American Flag : The Star-Spangled Banner, continues with Making the Star-Spangled Banner: Mary Pickersgill's American Flag.

Source:

Molotsky, Irvin. The Flag, The Poet and The Song. Penguin Putnam, Inc., London, England, 2001.

The copyright of the article Mary Pickersgill’s American Flag in American History is owned by Mary Trotter Kion. Permission to republish Mary Pickersgill’s American Flag in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.