The Fighting Quakers

She was born Elizabeth Griscom in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Samuel and Rebecca James Griscom, the 8th of 17 children. She was the great-granddaughter of a carpenter, Andrew Griscom, who had arrived in New Jersey in 1680 from England.

Young Elizabeth attended Quaker schools and learned needlework there and at home. When she married John Ross, an Anglican, in 1773, she was read out from the Friends Meeting for marrying outside the faith. She eventually joined the Free Quakers, or Fighting Quakers because they did not adhere strictly to the "Thou shall not kill" pacifism of the sect. John and Elizabeth Ross began an upholstery business together, drawing on her needlework skills.

You know her as Betsy Ross.

John was killed in January 1776 on militia duty when gunpowder exploded at the Philadelphia waterfront. Betsy acquired the property and kept up the upholstery business, making flags for Pennsylvania as well.

In 1777 Betsy married Joseph Ashburn, a sailor, who was on a ship captured by the British in 1781. He died in Old Mill Prison in England the next year.

In 1783, Betsy married again - this time, her husband was John Claypoole, who had been in prison with Joseph Ashburn, and had met Betsy when he delivered Joseph's dying farewells to her. He died in 1817, after a long disability.

Betsy lived until 1836, dying on January 30. She was buried in the Free Quaker Burying Ground.

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"The Fighting Quakers," or the Free Quakers as they are sometimes called, were a splinter group who broke with the main body during the American Revolution. They took the oath of allegiance and bore arms which put them at odds with the main body of Quakers. There were about 200 of them in the beginning and from 1783 until 1834 they met at the Free Quaker Meeting House at Fifth and Arch Street, in downtown Philadelphia. Betsy Ross, as Mrs. Claypoole, worshiped here.

Betsy Ross gave her tissue pattern for a star to Samuel Wetherill, one of the founders of the Free Quakers. Tradition has it, she told George Washington she could fold a piece of cloth and with one snip of the scissors make a perfect five-pointed star. Wetherill put the pattern in a safe which was, in true Philadelphia fashion, not opened for 150 years.

The last two Fighting Quakers to worship in the meetinghouse were Betsy (Ross) Claypoole and John Price Wetherill. In 1834 (Betsy was 82) the pair decided to sell the meetinghouse due to financial problems. With the value of land increasing tremendously in Philadelphia at the time, the pair also took the unusual step of selling the burial ground, for $42,000.


I'm going somewhere with this, I promise!

One of the prominent early families of the Philadelphia Quakers was the Wetherill family, the owners of Mill Grove early in the 19th century. They also purchased a large nearby farm across Pawlings Road.

That farm was previously owned by a man named William Bakewell, whose daughter married John James Audubon (the famous naturalist painter). Bakewell established a family burial ground on the property. It was his barn that was used as a hospital during the encampment at Valley Forge.


A Civil War soldier named Francis Wetherill died in Pottsville in 1895. He was a devoted Quaker, but more importantly he was the owner of the Wetherill Farm when he died. In his will, he bestowed on the society of Free Quakers the right to use the burial ground established earlier by William Bakewell.


Thus it came about, in 1905(!) all the tombstones in the Philadelphia burial ground, 61 in number, and the remaining bones of those buried there, were removed to the burial ground on the former Bakewell Farm.

Along with Bakewell and others, two distinguished and well known Americans, Timothy Matlack and Ira Allen, are buried in the cemetery, and their presence is noted by two historical markers, one on Pawlings Road and one on Audubon Road.


Matlack was a Revolutionary patriot, state official - in capacities such as Secretary of the Supreme Executive Council, Master of the Rolls and member of the Constitutional Convention of Pennsylvania - and member of the Continental Congress (1780-1781). A Colonel of a rifle battalion, Matlack fought in the Battle of Princeton. It is Timothy Matlack's penmenship you see on the Declaration of Independence.


Ira Allen was a Quaker from Vermont. "He was most heralded as an officer of the renowned Green Mountain Boys in the northern campaign of the Revolution. He was an author and the principal founding father of the University of Vermont."


It took me over 5 miles of walking and nearly 2 hours to find this cemetery. It was nearly dark when I did. If anyone wants to visit it, I'll be happy to give you directions or be your tour guide.

P.s., As for Betsy Ross herself, after being reburied twice, is now (sort of*) buried on Arch Street in the courtyard adjacent to the Betsy Ross House in Philadelphia.

* When they dug up her second grave they didn't find any body, bones found elsewhere and unidentified were declared hers and re-buried in her grave at the Betsy Ross home.