mateur poet Clara Lynn, blind from birth, was fascinated with local history in an era when the facts were less important than the effect of a good story. Among her one small volume are many ballads of about seacoast, NH folk history. “The Ranger Flag,” recounts the tale of local girls–dubbed the Helen Seavey Quilting Party–who sewed a flag for naval hero John Paul Jomes using material taken from their own gowns. The incredible detail is taken directly a 1900 biography of Jones by Augustus C. Buell. Later historians, including Samuel Eliot Morison, reported that Buell invented the entire tale as he did other inaccurate stories and letters falsely attributed to Jones. The story may have its origin in the fact that the fledgling US Congress assigned Jones as captain of the sloop Ranger out of Portsmouth Harbor on the same day that it approved the design for the new American flag.
Although it is an amateur poem about an untrue event based on the equally myth about Betsy Ross, “The Ranger Flag” offered a patriotic booster shot in the Colonial Revival era. Unaware of Buell’s inaccuracies, Clara Lynn captured the energy and the romance of the legend. About the time this poem was written, the John Paul Jones House Museum first opened in Portsmouth, NH. A brass plaque still on the side of the 1758 building tells the story of the “quilting party” that sewed the flag. It may have influenced locals who saved the gambrel-roofed colonial home from destruction in 1917. Although labeled “the father of lies,” Buell’s myth accidentally helped preserve the structure, much the way a poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes that saved “Old Ironsides.”
The Ranger Flag
By Clara Lynn (1929)
Our nation’s flag, the stars and stripes,Was made long, long ago,
The work of a young Quakeress
Named Betsy Ross, we know,
In Portsmouth, in the days of yore,
A handsome flag was made,
The handy work of many girls,
And on a ship displayed.
They made it for John Paul Jones’ ship,
The “Ranger” was its name,
A ship at Badger’s Island built,
Along the coast of Maine.
“The flag and I are twins,” Jones said,
“A nation’s place we won,
For I received a ship’s command,
The day the flag was born.”
Paul Jones, alert and handsome too,
Won praise from every one,
The Portsmouth lassies honored him,
For victories he had won.
A flag to float o’er his new ship,
These girls resolved to make,
With thirteen stripes of red and white,
And stars for every state.
At Widow Purcell’s boarding house,
When in Portsmouth, he would stay.
This house is now in history known
And bears his name today.
The widow had eight daughters,
And one of them became
The wife of Major Gardner,
Who had both wealth and fame.
Another of her daughters,
Was Captain Manning’s wife,
He was a loyal patriot
In the colonial strife.
But these girls were unmarried when
The Ranger’s flag was made,
And they with several other girls,
Flag making zeal displayed.
To Augusta Pierce, John Paul Jones told
The size the flag should be,
He said, ” ‘Twill bring me memories
of Portsmouth when at sea.”
The maidens spent their afternoons
In making this big flag,
And from the first stitch to the last,
These lassies did not lag.
‘Twas Helen Seavey, a young bride,
Who gave her wedding dress, :
She said, “A skill at needlecraft
I never did possess.
I cannot help at sewing stripes,
I’ll cut the stars instead.
And of the flag’s material
I will not waste a thread.”
‘Twas Mary Langdon’s loom that wove
The cloth for the blue field,
And Caroline Chandler spun the threads
For weaving, on her wheel.
They said, “The flag’s material
Must be the very best,”
They made a fast dye that was used
In coloring many a dress.
At Stoodley’s Tavern, on Daniel Street,
Elijah Hall was host,
And workmen on the “Ranger” ship,
Of Stoodley fare would boast.
The landlord’s daughter Dorothy,
Was one who helped to make
The “Ranger” flag that has renown,
Throughout the Granite State.
This sewing club, the lassies named,
“The Ranger Sewing Bee”
And proudly each maid did her work
With stitches hard to see.
And many were the words of praise,
For loyal zeal they had,
They showed their love for this free land,
By making the ship’s flag.
On July 4th, seventeen seventy-seven,
The flag was on display,
The place where all could gaze on it,
Was “Mason’s Hill,” they say.
And on the “Ranger” that same day,
The flag waved in the breeze,
And proud was the commander, Jones,
To take it o’er the seas.
Today the name of Betsy Ross
Blends with our nation’s fame,
But Portsmouth boasts the “Ranger” flag
That blends with Paul Jones’ name.
The girls who made this famous flag,
Like Betsy Ross of yore,
Made a memorial that will stand,
Till flags shall be no more.
From “Poems About Portsmouth” © 1929 Clara Lynn, text by SeacoastHistory.com.
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