The Betsy Ross Puzzle

A correspondent asked me to supply him with the solution to an old puzzle that is attributed to a certain Betsy Ross, of Philadelphia, who showed it to George Washington. It consists in so folding a piece of paper that with one clip of the scissors a five-pointed star of Freedom may be produced. Whether the story of the puzzle's origin is a true one or not I cannot say, but I have a print of the old house in Philadelphia where the lady is said to have lived, and I believe it still stands there. But my readers will doubtless be interested in the little poser.

Take a circular piece of paper and so fold it that with one cut of the scissors you can produce a perfect five-pointed star.

Its source prints no answer for this problem, so there's nothing to check against.

H. E. Dudeney, Amusements in Mathematics (1917) · No. 161