<P> The Betsy Ross flag is an early design of the flag of the United States, popularly--but very likely incorrectly--attributed to Betsy Ross, using the common motifs of alternating red - and - white striped field with five - pointed stars in a blue canton . The first documented usage of this flag was in 1792 . The flag features 13 stars to represent the original 13 colonies with the stars arranged in a circle . </P> <P> Although this early version of an American flag is now commonly called the "Betsy Ross Flag," the claim by her descendants state that Betsy Ross contributed to this design is not accepted by modern American scholars and vexillologists . </P> <P> The National Museum of American History notes that the story first entered into American consciousness about the time of the 1876 Centennial Exposition celebrations . In 1870, Ross's grandson, William J. Canby, presented a paper to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in which he claimed that his grandmother had "made with her hands the first flag" of the United States . Canby said he first obtained this information from his aunt Clarissa Sydney (Claypoole) Wilson in 1857, twenty years after Betsy Ross's death . Canby dates the historic episode based on Washington's journey to Philadelphia, in late spring 1776, a year before Congress passed the Flag Act . </P>

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