Mary Young Pickersgill Flag Maker of the Star-spangled Banner - Softcover

Johnston, Sally; Pilling, Pat

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1496942310 ISBN 13: 9781496942319

Publisher: Authorhouse, 2014

Synopsis

Mary Pickersgill and the Star-Spangled Banner tells the story of how a young widow in the summer of 1813 made two large flags for Fort McHenry in Baltimore. The young United States was at war with Great Britain, and Fort McHenry prepared for an attack from the British. All was ready at the fort except for a proper set of flags. George Armistead, commander at Fort McHenry, needed the hand sewn flags in a hurry giving Mary Pickersgill just six weeks to produce them. This book will explain how Mary Pickersgill learned to make flags, where she obtained the four hundred yards of fabric, woven only in England, to make the flag, how she organized a small work force of young women, including a free African-American indentured servant, to sew the flags and where she found a workplace to make such large flags. Surprisingly, Mary Pickersgill did not consider sewing the Star-Spangled Banner the greatest accomplishment of her life. Under her leadership, a Baltimore charitable organization helped poor widows find work to support their families. The organization raised the funds to build the Home for Aged Widows that opened with great publicity and fanfare six years before Mary Pickersgill died. The Pickersgill Retirement Home in Towson has its roots in Mary Pickersgill's crowning achievement of her lifetime.

The stirring history of Mary Pickersgill's family is included in the book and helps explain Mary Pickersgill's drive and determination to produce the flags for Fort McHenry when the city of Baltimore was under imminent attack. The book also describes how the Star-Spangled Banner became the most important object in the Smithsonian's vast collection. In addition, the book recounts the history of the Star-Spangled Banner Flag House Association that preserved the little house on the corner of Pratt and Albemarle Streets as a museum to honor Mary Pickersgill's legacy.

About this title

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Mary Young Pickersgill Flag Maker of the Star-Spangled Banner

By Sally Johnston, Pat Pilling

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2014 Sally Johnston; Pat Pilling
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-4969-4231-9

Contents

Preface, v, 
Chapter 1 Setting Up Shop: Baltimore, 1806, 1, 
Chapter 2 The Flag House, 11, 
Chapter 3 A Family of Flag Makers, 17, 
Chapter 4 Mary Pickersgill and the Star-Spangled Banner, 22, 
Chapter 5 The Battle of Baltimore, 36, 
Chapter 6 The Impartial Female Humane Society, 45, 
Chapter 7 Caroline Purdy, 54, 
Chapter 8 Stewardship of the Star-Spangled Banner, 59, 
Chapter 9 The Flag House Association, 66, 
Appendices, 
A Mary Pickersgill's Family, 76, 
B John Pickersgill, 93, 
C William Young, Flag Maker, 100, 
D Early American Flag Makers Data Sheet, 106, 
Index, 115, 
Acknowledgements, 119, 
About the Authors, 121, 
About the Book, 123, 

CHAPTER 1

Setting Up Shop: Baltimore, 1806

Baltimore was a booming city in the early nineteenth century, almost doubling its population between 1800 and 1810 from 26,500 citizens to 46,500 citizens. For a short time, it was the third largest city in the United States. Wheat was a key to this growth. After the Revolutionary War, farmers began growing wheat in western Maryland. Wagonloads of wheat rumbled over the rough roads of the countryside to flour mills that had sprung up along the streams leading to Baltimore's harbor. Turning the wheat into flour increased its value. Ships crowded Baltimore's harbor waiting to sail to England and Europe with their holds filled with bags of flour.

Mary Pickersgill and her mother, Rebecca Young, both flag makers, moved from Philadelphia to Baltimore in 1806 with Mary's daughter, Caroline. Both women were widows and wanted to be close to their relatives. Baltimore proved to be an excellent place for these two experienced flag makers. The high volume of shipping meant that there was great demand for ships flags, merchant flags, and signal flags. In addition, there was a strong need for military colours for militia groups that were springing up everywhere as a result of tensions between the young United States and England. The powerful British navy was interfering with the profitable merchant trade between the United States and France, raising concern of the possibility of a second war between the two nations. Militia groups formed in anticipation of the likelihood of war. The city resounded with the sound of fife and drum as the militia groups, exhibiting their colours, trained and paraded.

Rebecca Young, who had advertised her flag-making business in Philadelphia, lost no time doing the same after arriving in Baltimore. On June 19, 1806, the American Commercial Daily Advertiser carried an advertisement on its front page. Colours is a term used at the time to refer to flags.

Her reputation as a flag maker must have preceded her to Baltimore, as her name is so prominent. This ad ran numerous times in the summer of 1806. Rebecca Young and Mary Pickersgill were living on Albemarle Street between Market (today's Baltimore Street) and Peter's Bridge, which crossed the Jones Falls at present-day Lombard Street. The small family mentioned in the ad included Rebecca Young, sixty-seven, Mary Pickersgill, thirty, and six-year-old Caroline. Hannah and Jesse Fearson, Mary Pickersgill's sister and brother-in-law, lived on Granby, which was parallel to Albemarle one block to the east. (Granby became an east-west street perpendicular to Albemarle Street a few years later.) Mary Pickersgill's brother, John Young, appeared in the Baltimore City Directory as a sailmaker living on Pitt Street with his sail loft on Market Street—right across the Jones Falls from Old Town. Mary Pickersgill's uncle, John Young, her father's brother, also moved to Baltimore from Philadelphia in 1806 and appeared in the Baltimore Directory as a merchant living at 14 Albemarle Street.

Establishing and advertising a business in Baltimore in 1806, when few, if any, women had companies of their own, set Rebecca Young and Mary Pickersgill apart from the norm. This is not to say that women did not work—they did, but they seldom ran businesses. Rebecca Young had experience in running a flag-making concern, and Mary Pickersgill grew up watching her mother run her business. Without another source of income, Rebecca Young and Mary Pickersgill opened a business when they arrived in Baltimore to support the family. The entrepreneurial spirit seemed to be in their veins, and they plunged into their work—which meant stocking up on flag-making supplies, advertising their wares, and finding women to help them sew the flags. Rebecca Young advertised for a girl to help with the household work who could also sew. Having a girl who could do housework as well as the household sewing and mending would free up time for Rebecca Young and Mary Pickersgill to make flags.

An ad in the July 30, 1807, Baltimore American and Commercial Daily Advertiser indicated that Rebecca Young and Mary Pickersgill had moved to 60 Albemarle Street—the corner of Albemarle and Queen (now Pratt) Street, site of the current Flag House.

Unlike the ad a year earlier for making ship's colours, this ad informed the military gentlemen of Baltimore that Rebecca Young and Mary Pickersgill made silk standards and colours for the cavalry and also colours for the navy. Perhaps in the intervening year, Rebecca Young and Mary Pickersgill gained a better understanding of the colours market in Baltimore. Because the house was larger than the house at 22 Albemare Street, they now had room to take in a boarder, as the ad notes, to help support the family. This ad appeared four times in the paper in July and August.

There was a flurry of ads in September 1807. The September 3, 5, 16, 19, and 24 editions of the Baltimore Evening Post carried the ad shown below.

Rebecca Young again directed the announcement to the military gentlemen of Baltimore. There was no mention of a room to "let," so it is reasonable to assume that a boarder had been found for the extra room in the house. Rebecca Young promised to make colours of every description in the shortest order. It is likely that this pledge of prompt service was in response to a situation two weeks earlier, when the Baltimore Union Volunteers had to report for parade day without colours because the flag maker had not completed them in time, a situation reported in the Baltimore Evening Post on September 3, 1807.

Rebecca Young hoped to do better than her competing flag makers in Baltimore. By promising to make flags promptly, to the satisfaction of the customer and for the most reasonable price, she hoped to gain business from the flag maker who failed to produce the colours for the Baltimore Union Volunteers.

On September 25, Rebecca Young and Mary Pickersgill informed the military gentlemen of Baltimore that they would make "Silk Standards, Cavalry and Division Colours, painted in the neatest manner, of every description." Rebecca Young and Mary Pickersgill hired an artist to paint the emblems of the military groups onto silk flags. They also had a showroom in the house at 60 Albemarle to display examples of their workmanship.

The papers in Baltimore City were full of notices for militia units to gather to drill and practice. On September 16, 1807, the same day that Rebecca Young's colours ad appeared in the Baltimore American & Commercial Daily Advertiser, there were three notices for militia groups to gather:

Republican Mechanical Volunteers,
The members composing this company are
requested to assemble at their usual parade ground
on Thursday evening, at 3 O'clock
by order,
Fredk I. Rapp.

The Baltimore Volunteer Guards
Are requested to meet at their usual place of
parade, back of Leaman's Garden, tomorrow
Evening (Thursday) at 4 O'clock, in common dress
with arms and accoutrements compleat, and flints
in their guns.
R. Mackubin, Sec'ry

The Baltimore Rifle Company,
Are requested to meet This Afternoon, at the
Court House at half past 3 o'clock, in uniform,
each man furnished with 6 rounds of blank cartridges.
By order of the captain

The country was stirred up in the summer of 1807 when a British warship, the Leopard, fired on an American warship, the Chesapeake, killed some of the crew, and took (impressed) a number of the men, claiming they were British deserters. John Young, Mary Pickersgill's brother or uncle, a member of the Union Guards of Liberty attached to the 27th Regiment of Maryland Militia, signed a letter to President Thomas Jefferson promising the Union Guards' full support should there be military action as a result of the Chesapeake affair. The letter and Thomas Jefferson's reply to the group was published in the August 3, 1807, American & Commercial Daily Advertiser: "The offer of your services in support of your country, merits and meets the highest praise." All the excitement surrounding the Chesapeake affair was good for the Young and Pickersgill flag business.

In addition to making military colours, Rebecca Young and Mary Pickersgill made signal flags and merchant flags. The booming shipping industry in Baltimore required several kinds of flags—signal flags, used for communicating, and merchant flags representing the owners of the individual ships. The Baltimore City Directory of 1800–1801 listed descriptions of all the merchant flags used in the city, for example, "white flag with a blue cross—William Taylor." These flags were flown on the ships themselves, but they were also flown in other places, so multiple copies were needed. As the ships sailed into Baltimore up the Patapsco River, a series of flag poles telegraphed the approach of the ship by hoisting a copy of the merchant flag. The final flag pole was on Federal Hill, which boasted a thirty-foot observatory. When the flag of a ship was spied through a telescope, a matching flag was hoisted on the observatory.

Local merchants kept a close watch on the flags when expecting the return of their ship so they would know when their ship had come in. Rebecca Young made a signal flag for Robert Oliver in 1809. Art historian Lance Humphries found the receipt while doing research on Oliver. Humphries stated that Oliver, one of the wealthiest merchants in Baltimore in 1809, needed the flag for his business of Oliver and Thompson. The company could afford the best flag maker in Baltimore, implying that Rebecca Young and Mary Pickersgill were considered among the best flag makers in the city. Oliver's signal flag is on the top row, second from the right in image below.

Mary Pickersgill and Rebecca Young also sewed sets of signal flags used as a form of communication between ships. Ten flags made of bunting and as large as 9 by 15 feet made up a set of signals. The design of the ten flags was standard. The manner in which they were displayed and interpreted varied among fleets of ships. Ships sent messages among the fleet by hoisting up signal flags in a certain order. The most famous message in naval history is Admiral Nelson's before the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. The signal flags sent the message "England expects that every man will do his duty." The battle was a tremendous victory for the British, except that Nelson was hit by a mortar and died of his wounds.

A watercolor chart of ten signal flags used among the ships under the command of Captain Charles Gordon in the Chesapeake during the War of 1812 is in the Maryland Archives. The chart shows the design of the signal flags, but their actual dimensions are unknown. These flags are similar to ones Mary Pickersgill would have made for ships. Ships often carried multiple sets of signal flags.

Sailors hoisted signal flags up halyards to send messages to other ships in the fleet. For example, when a signal flag number one was hoisted up the halyard followed by a signal flag number three, it commanded ships in the fleet to "get underway" or, more ominously, a signal flag nine combined with a signal flag zero communicated that a "Strange sail a ship of war." Translations of signal patterns were kept in a secret book and only understood among a fleet.

The decision of Mary Pickersgill and Rebecca Young to relocate to Baltimore from Philadelphia in 1806 proved to be a fortuitous one. They found an excellent market for their flags in a city bustling with maritime and military activity. By using bold advertising to establish their business, finding a residence well suited for flag making and sales, and augmenting their income by taking in boarders, they were well prepared seven years later to accept the biggest flag commission of their lives: making the Star-Spangled Banner.

CHAPTER 2

The Flag House

Mary Pickersgill and Rebecca Young relocated to a two-and-one-half story brick house at the corner of Queen and Albemarle Streets in 1807. After moving continually since she was born, Mary Pickersgill had found the ideal house at 60 Albemarle Street, and she lived there for the next fifty years. Built in 1793, the Flag House, as it is known today, was well situated for business with its prominent corner location close to the harbor. Over twenty windows, including three dormers, provided abundant light during daylight hours for sewing.

Rebecca Young's and Mary Pickersgill's neighbors included sea captains, merchants, a brick layer, a carpenter, and a baker. The most famous sea captain of his day, Thomas Boyle, lived on nearby Granby Street.

Ships' captains needing flags and signals reached 60 Albemarle easily from their ships docked in Baltimore's harbor. These sea captains also may have been the boarders in Mary Pickersgill's house, perhaps renting the room for a year at a time in order to have a place to stay in Baltimore while their ships were unloaded, reloaded, and repaired for the next voyage.

The house had three rooms on the ground floor and a hallway that linked all the rooms. The hallway extended from the front door on Queen Street (now Pratt Street) to the kitchen in the back of the house. The business entrance, at 60 Albemarle Street (now the center window on the ground floor of the main block of the building facing Albemarle Street), was a door when Rebecca Young and Mary Pickersgill lived in the house. Customers entered the door on Albemarle Street and waited in the hallway to be escorted into the front room, where Rebecca Young and Mary Pickersgill had a display of their flags. Flag orders were written up and paid for in the adjoining small dining room over a cup of tea. Doors separated the two front rooms from the noise, smoke, and activity of the kitchen.

The kitchen end of the house and the room above it were separated from the rest of the house with a firewall. Kitchen fires were frequent, and as a precaution, these two rooms were built as a completely selfsupporting structure that would not bring the main structure of the house down if it burned and collapsed. On March 26, 1799, the Baltimore Equitable Society wrote two separate insurance policies for Benjamin Dutton, renting the house at the time: one for the front of the house #617, and a second for the back of the house #618. The Flag House has not changed in size or footprint since these policies were written over two hundred years ago.

The insurance policy for # 617 described the front of the house in this manner:

To Benjamin Dutton upon his two story brick dwelling house at the intersection of Albemarle & Queen Streets fronting on north side of Queen Street, twenty feet & extending back on the west side of Albemarle Street, thirty feet, plain finished.

And insurance policy # 618 for the back of the house:

his two story brick kitchen adjoining the back side of his dwelling house described in Policy No. 617 fronting on the west side of Albemarle Street Sixteen feet and extending back twelve feet nine inches plain finished.

The kitchen end was 16 feet by 12 feet 9 inches—not as wide as the rest of the house. This afforded a small courtyard outside the kitchen doors and allowed for windows in the dining room and the small bedroom and attic above. When Mary Pickersgill and Rebecca Young moved into the house, all the cooking was done over the open hearth, and there was a beehive oven for baking and roasting. The beehive oven, located next to the fireplace, extended beyond the back wall of the kitchen. The round shape of the oven extension looked like a beehive, giving it its name. The bricks of the oven were heated by building a fire in the oven. Once the bricks were heated, the hot coals were brushed aside and bread, rolls, and chicken, among other things, were baked in the oven. As soon as cook stoves became available and affordable, Mary Pickersgill had one installed to replace cooking on the hearth. The slave and indentured free black female most likely slept on pallets in the kitchen. The pallets were rolled up in the morning and stored out of the way during the day.

The second floor had three bedrooms, and it remains largely unchanged since Mary Pickersgill lived there. When the first floor parlor functioned as the flag shop, the front room of the second floor, the largest room in the house, served as a small parlor as well as a bedroom. Second-floor parlors in urban settings were preferable, removing family and guests from the dusty, smelly, and noisy street below. A cupboard to the right of the fireplace, original to the room, has grooves in the shelves to display plates and platters upright, indicating that meals were taken in this room. The bed, often the most expensive piece of furniture in the house, would have been lavishly swathed with fabric bed furnishings, and served as a piece to show off to visiting guests. The room proved to be a good place to sew too since it had five windows, providing much-needed light for the task.

There is a small middle bedroom on the second floor, which may have been the bedroom for Mary Pickersgill's three nieces when they came to live with her. It was the practice of the day to share beds and bedrooms. It may also have been Rebecca Young's bedroom. There is one small window in the room.

A small landing on the second floor separated the front two rooms from the back room. Three steps lead up from the landing to the back room, and three steps opposite lead to the front two rooms. This configuration of stairs are called "Good Morning Stairs," as occupants from the front rooms greeted occupants of the back room as they descended to the first floor in the morning.

The back room provided an ideal boarders' room as it was separated from the family bedrooms in the front of the house. Rebecca Young advertised that the room had a "healthful and pleasant location," with windows on east and west walls offering cross ventilation, at the back of the house away from the busy and noisy Queen Street and above the kitchen, which provided warmth in the winter (and of course an added risk of fire).

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Mary Young Pickersgill Flag Maker of the Star-Spangled Banner by Sally Johnston, Pat Pilling. Copyright © 2014 Sally Johnston; Pat Pilling. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Authorhouse
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1496942310
• ISBN 13: 9781496942319
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 134