A Place for ... stories and photos and more
A place for stories and memories of my families. Also a place I can post photos and stories so that my brothers will hopefully be able to see them!
A Legend is No Longer
What do you do when something you learned about as a child and were rather proud of, even telling several classes of 5th graders about it, turns out to not be true? The story of Helen Seavey and her wedding dress is one that has been passed down through my family for many generations. Apparently, Helen, who married in May of 1777, donated her wedding dress to make the stars for the flag destined for the Ranger , one of the ships captained by John Paul Jones. He was the founder of the American Navy and this flag would be the first American flag to be seen in a European port. The flag was sewn at a quilting party in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The source material, a book by August Buell, “Paul Jones: Founder of the American Navy”, even mentioned several other young ladies at the gathering. Well, he apparently was not the most accurate of biographers. Anna Farwell de Koven later disproved much of his writing. She was researching John Paul Jones herself when Buell's b...
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