PHILADELPHIA — Halloween tales told at the Betsy Ross House have nothing to do with flag making — or even ghosts. There are no cheap scares amid the lantern light — no colonial-costumed ghouls emerge in the courtyard fog or surprise in the shadows of creaky rooms.
Instead, the frights to be had after dark at the famed flag maker’s former Old City digs and upholstery shop come from something far scarier: the truth. Chilling stories from Ross’ own hard life and times.
A frighteningly familiar fever that wiped out 10% of Philadelphia, including Ross’ parents and sister only days apart. The medical horrors of an age when diseases such as smallpox and yellow fever claimed countless lives — and treatments such as bloodletting were still used for the common cold, and brain surgeries and amputations were performed without anesthesia. A time when personal hygiene was so poor that even people much wealthier than Ross could go almost their whole life without a bath.
