![]() ![]() In doing so, Betsy acquired an array of skills atypical for women at the time. In return for her work, the family saw that she was properly clothed, fed, tended to when ill, and saw to her moral and religious education. Such children were required to remain with the family until they became of age or in the case of many women, were married. We know that she was bound to a farm family. This would indicate that her family had been poor. She was orphaned at the age of nine and shortly after, became a ‘bound girl’ such children were offered to families as a servant to earn her keep. Little has been recorded of her early life. Her brow is wet with honest sweat, She earns whate’er she can, And looks the whole world in the face, For she owes not any manĪn editorial nod to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “The Village Blacksmith” Early LifeĮlizabeth Hager (1750 or 1755 – July 12, 1843), was born in or near Boston, Massachusetts (some accounts state Framingham). After she supposedly refitted and reassembled hundreds of firelocks, she became known throughout the Boston region as an expert on any gun or musket to be had. Prior to the opening shots of the war, she had already gained a reputation as an adept blacksmith. In 1775, Elizabeth Hager, known as “Handy Betsy” or “Betsy the Blacksmith,” stood at her forge and repaired hundreds of old, ancient muskets brought to her by militiamen preparing for the expected military confrontation with England. Rosy the Riveter, strong, iconic figure, symbolic of women who worked countless hours on military armaments for American men fighting on World War II’s battlefields, had a true to life predecessor one hundred and sixty-eight years earlier. Betsey Hager – American Revolution Rosey the Riveter – World War II
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