made ensigns, garrison flags and "Continental Colors" for the Continental Army. Her 1781 advertisement in the "Pennsylvania Packet" read, "All kinds of colours, for the Army and Navy, made and sold on the most reasonable Terms, By Rebecca Young." Young moved her family to Baltimore, Maryland when Mary was a child, and it was from her mother that Mary learned the craft of flag making. On October 2, 1795, at the age of 19, Mary married John Pickersgill, a merchant, and moved back to Philadelphia with her husband. Of Mary's four children, only one survived childhood, a daughter named Caroline. Mary's husband traveled to London to work for the United States Government in the British Claims Office, but died in London on June 14, 1805, leaving Mary widowed at the age of 29. In 1807 Mary then moved back to Baltimore with her daughter Caroline and her 67-year-old mother Rebecca. The small family rented a house at 44 Queen Street (later 844 East Pratt Street, which became the Star Spangled Banner Flag House and 1812 Museum), where Pickersgill took in boarders and opened a flag-making business, selling "silk standards, cavalry and division colours of every description." Her customers included the United States Army, United States Navy, and visiting merchant ships. The Fort McHenry flag In 1813 the United States was at war with Great Britain, and Baltimore was preparing for an eventual attack as the fleet of the British Royal Navy had complete maritime control of the Chesapeake Bay. Major George Armistead, the U.S. Army commander of the Infantry and Artillery units that defended Fort McHenry in Baltimore, felt that the fort was prepared for an attack, except it lacked a flag. In a letter to the head of the Maryland Militia and military commander for Baltimore, Major General Samuel Smith, he wrote, "We, sir, are ready at Fort McHenry to defend Baltimore against invading by the enemy. That is to say, we are ready except that we have no suitable ensign to display over the Star Fort and it is my desire to have a flag so large that the British will have no difficulty seeing it from a distance." A delegation consisting of Armistead, Smith, Brig. General John Stricker, and Commodore Joshua Barney, Pickersgill's brother-in-law, visited with Pickersgill, and discussed the particulars of the desired flag. They commissioned Pickersgill to make two flags, "one American ensign, 30 X