42 feet, first quality bunting" and another flag 17 by 25 feet." A task as large as the making of these flags was beyond the capability of one person to complete, and Pickersgill not only drew on members of her own household for help, but also contracted labor from the immediate neighborhood. In early summer 1813, she began the job with the assistance of her daughter, Caroline, her two nieces, Eliza Young and Margaret Young, a free African American apprentice, Grace Wisher, and likely her elderly mother, Rebecca Young. An additional unnamed African American who boarded in the house is also listed as helping in some sources, as were additional local seamstresses who were hired during the summer. Often working late into the evening, until midnight at times, Pickersgill's team was able to complete the job in six weeks. Pickersgill's daughter, in an 1876 letter to Georgiana Armistead Appleton, the daughter of Major Armistead (later breveted a lieutenant colonel), wrote these particulars about the flag: The flag being so very large, mother was obliged to obtain permission from the proprietors of Claggetts brewery which was in our neighborhood, to spread it out in their malt house; and I remember seeing my mother down on the floor, placing the stars: after the completion of the flag, she superintended the topping of it, having it fastened in the most secure manner to prevent its being torn away by (cannon) balls: the wisdom of her precaution was shown during the engagement: many shots piercing it, but it still remained firm to the staff. Your father (Col. Armistead) declared that no one but the maker of the flag should mend it, and requested that the rents should merely be bound around. The large flag contained over of fabric, and included 15 stripes and 15 stars, one for each of the 15 states of the union. The stars were made of cotton and the stripes and blue canton were of English wool bunting. Each stripe was wide and each of the stars measured across from tip to tip. The women did much of the work in the evening after the brewery closed, sometimes working until midnight, and Pickersgill delivered the flags to Fort McHenry on August 19, 1813, a full year before the Battle of Baltimore. The main flag weighed about , and it took 11 men to raise it onto a flagpole. The result