Francis Scott Key

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Francis Scott Key

Fort McHenry looking towards the position of the British ships (with the Francis Scott Key Bridge in the distance on the upper left)

Francis Scott Key (August 1, 1779 – January 11, 1843) was an American lawyer and amateur poet who wrote the words to the United States national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner".

Life

He was born to Ann Louis Penn Dagworthy (Charlton) and Capt John Ross Key at the family plantation Terra Rubra near Keymar, Maryland. He was an alumnus of St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland.

During the War of 1812, Key, accompanied by the American Prisoner Exchange Agent Col. John Stuart Skinner, dined aboard the British ship HMS Tonnant, as the guests of Vice Adm. Cochrane, RAdm. Sir George Cockburn and Major General Robert Ross. They were there to negotiate the release of a prisoner, Dr. William Beanes. A resident of Upper Marlboro, Maryland, Beanes had been captured by the British after he placed rowdy stragglers under citizen's arrest. Skinner, Key and Beanes were allowed to return to their own sloop, but were not allowed to return to Baltimore because they had become familiar with the strength and position of the British units and of the British intention to attack Baltimore. As a result of this, Key was unable to do anything but watch the bombarding of Ft. McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore, and was inspired to write a poem describing the experience. Entitled "The Defence of Fort McHenry", it has become better known as "The Star Spangled Banner". Under this name, the song was adopted as the American national anthem by a Congressional resolution in 1931, signed by President Herbert Hoover.

In 1832, Key served as the attorney for Sam Houston during his trial in the US House of Representatives for assaulting another Congressman [Sam Houston]. Handbook of Texas Online. .

In 1835 Key prosecuted Richard Lawrence for his unsuccessful attempt to assassinate President of the United States Andrew Jackson.

Key was a distant cousin and the namesake of F. Scott Fitzgerald whose full name was Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald. His direct descendants include geneticist Thomas Mark Morgan, and guitarist Dana Key.

Monuments and memorials

The Howard family vault at Saint Paul's Cemetery, Baltimore, Maryland.

Key died at the home of his daughter Elizabeth Howard in Baltimore from pleurisy and was initially interred in Old Saint Paul's Cemetery in the vault of John Eager Howard. He was later, in 1866, moved to his family plot in Frederick at Mount Olivet Cemetery. The Key Monument Association erected a memorial in 1898 and the remains of both Francis Scott Key and his wife were placed in a crypt in the base of the monument.

The Francis Scott Key Bridge between the Rosslyn section of Arlington County, Virginia, and Georgetown in Washington, D.C., and the Francis Scott Key Bridge, part of the Baltimore Beltway crossing the outer harbor of Baltimore, Maryland, are named in his honor. Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge is located at the approximate point where the British anchored to shell Fort McHenry.

Francis Scott Key was inducted into the Songwriters' Hall of Fame in 1970.

Media

Notes