Family
Pickersgill's uncle, Colonel Benjamin Flower, fought during the American Revolutionary War, and was presented a sword by General George Washington for his masterful evacuation of Philadelphia during the British occupation of that city.
Of Pickersgill's five siblings, her oldest brother, William Young, was also a flag maker, and it is likely that his two daughters were Pickersgill's nieces that assisted in making the Star Spangled Banner flag. Her sister Hannah Young married Captain Jesse Fearson, a privateer during the War of 1812 who was captured by the British, imprisoned in Havana, Cuba, and later escaped.
Pickersgill's one surviving child, Caroline (1800-1884), married John Purdy (1795-1837). The couple apparently had no surviving children, because in a letter written late in her life to the daughter of George Armistead, Purdy called herself "widowed and childless." She had become somewhat destitute late in life, and in the same letter requested some financial assistance, but also provided some history about her mother and the making of the Star-Spangled Banner flag.
Read more about this topic: Mary Young Pickersgill
Famous quotes containing the word family:
“The family: I believe more unhappiness comes from this source than from any other—I mean the attempt to prolong family connection unduly, and to make people hang together artificially who would never naturally do so.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“Do not let your bachelor ways crystallize so that you can’t soften them when you come to have a wife and a family of your own.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“The agent’s steep and steady stare
Corroded to a grin.
Why, you black old, tough old hell of a man,
Move your family in!”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)