Francis Scott Key

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Francis Scott Key
Key-Francis-Scott-LOC.jpg
Francis Scott Key
Born (1779-08-01)August 1, 1779
Carroll County, Maryland, U.S.
Died January 11, 1843(1843-01-11) (aged 63)
Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
Nationality American
Ethnicity English
Occupation Poet, lawyer, district attorney
Religion Episcopalian
Children Philip Barton Key II
Relatives Philip Barton Key, uncle
Francis Key Howard, grandson
Maryland Historical Society plaque marking the birthplace of 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, author, and amateur poet, from Georgetown, who wrote the lyrics to the United States' national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner".

Francis Scott Key was born to Ann Phoebe Penn Dagworthy (Charlton) and Captain John Ross Key at the family plantation Terra Rubra in what was Frederick County, Maryland (now Carroll County, Maryland).[1] His father John Ross Key was a lawyer, a judge, and an officer in the Continental Army. His great-grandparents were Philip Key and Susanna Barton Gardiner, both of whom were born in London and immigrated to Maryland in 1726.[2][3]

He studied law at St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland and also learned under his uncle Philip Barton Key.[4]

Contents

"The Star-Spangled Banner"

During the War of 1812, Key, accompanied by the British Prisoner Exchange Agent Colonel John Stuart Skinner, dined aboard the British ship HMS Tonnant, as the guests of three British officers: Vice Admiral Alexander Cochrane, Rear Admiral George Cockburn, and Major General Robert Ross. Skinner and Key were there to negotiate the release of prisoners, one of whom was Dr. William Beanes, a resident of Upper Marlboro, Maryland who had been arrested after putting rowdy stragglers under citizen's arrest. Skinner, Key, and Beanes were not allowed to return to their own sloop because they had become familiar with the strength and position of the British units and with the British intent to attack Baltimore. As a result of this, Key was unable to do anything but watch the bombarding of the American forces at Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore on the night of September 13–14, 1814.[5]

At dawn, Key was able to see an American flag still waving and reported this to the prisoners below deck. On the way back to Baltimore, he was inspired to write a poem describing his experience, "Defence of Fort McHenry", which he published in the Patriot on September 20, 1814. He intended to fit it to the rhythms of composer John Stafford Smith's "To Anacreon in Heaven",[5] a popular tune Key had already used as a setting for his 1805 song "When the Warrior Returns," celebrating U.S. heroes of the First Barbary War. (Key used the "star spangled" flag imagery in the earlier song.)[6] It has become better known as "The Star Spangled Banner". Under this name, the song was adopted as the American national anthem, first by an Executive Order from President Woodrow Wilson in 1916 (which had little effect beyond requiring military bands to play it) and then by a Congressional resolution in 1931, signed by President Herbert Hoover.

Later life

From 1818 until his death in 1843, Key was associated with the American Bible Society.[7]

In 1832, Key served as the attorney for Sam Houston during his trial in the U.S. House of Representatives for assaulting another Congressman.[8] He published a prose work called The Power of Literature, and Its Connection with Religion in 1834.[4]

Key was appointed as a United States District Attorney, serving from 1833 to 1841.[9]

Key used his position to suppress opponents of slavery. In 1833, he indicted Benjamin Lundy, editor of the anti-slavery publication, The Genius of Universal Emancipation, and his printer, WIlliam Greer, for libel after Lundy publishing an article that declared, "There is neither mercy nor justice for colored people in this district," referring to the District of Columbia." Lundy's article, Key said in the indictment, "was intended to injure, oppress, aggrieve, and vilify the good name, fame, credit & reputation of the Magistrates and constables" of Washington. Lundy left town rather than face trial; Greer was acquitted.[10]

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

In 1836, Key prosecuted New York doctor Reuben Crandall, brother of controversial Connecticut school teacher Prudence Crandall, for "seditious libel" for possessing a trunk full of anti-slavery publications in his Georgetown residence. In a trial that attracted nationwide attention, Key charged that Crandall's actions had the effect of instigating enslaved people to rebel. Crandall's attorneys acknowledged he opposed slavery but denied any intent or actions to encourage rebellion. In his final address to the jury, Key said "Are you willing gentleman to abandon your country, to permit it to be taken from you, and occupied by the abolitionist, according to whose taste it is to associate and amalgamate with the gentleman, on the other hand, are there laws in this community to defend you from the immediate abolitionist, who would open upon you the floodgates of such extensive wickedness and mischief?" Crandall was acquitted.[11]

In 1843, Key died at the home of his daughter Elizabeth Howard in Baltimore from pleurisy[12] and was initially interred in Old Saint Paul's Cemetery in the vault of John Eager Howard. In 1866, his body was moved to his family plot in Frederick at Mount Olivet Cemetery. Though Key had written poetry from time to time, often with heavily religious themes, these works were not collected and published until 14 years after his death.[4]

The Key Monument Association erected a memorial in 1898 and the remains of both Francis Scott Key and his wife, Mary Tayloe Lloyd, were placed in a crypt in the base of the monument.

Other related items

In 1806, Key's sister, Anne Phoebe Charlton Key, married Roger B. Taney, who would later become Chief Justice of the United States. In 1846 his daughter Alice married U.S. Senator George H. Pendleton.[13] In 1859 Key's son Philip Barton Key II was shot and killed by Daniel Sickles – a U.S. Congressman who would serve as a general in the American Civil War – after he discovered that Philip Barton Key was having an affair with his wife.[14] Sickles was acquitted in the first use of the temporary insanity defense.[15] In 1861 Key's grandson Francis Key Howard was imprisoned in Fort McHenry with the Mayor of Baltimore George William Brown and other locals deemed pro-South.

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 Hunt Morgan, guitarist Dana Key, and American fashion designer and socialite Pauline de Rothschild.[citation needed]

Two of Key's religious poems used as Christian hymns include "Before the Lord We Bow" and "Lord, with Glowing Heart I'd Praise Thee".[16]

Despite several efforts to preserve it, the Francis Scott Key residence was ultimately dismantled in 1947. The residence had been located at 3516–18 M Street in Georgetown.[17]

Monuments and memorials

Plaque commemorating the death of Francis Scott Key placed by the DAR in Baltimore.
The Howard family vault at Saint Paul's Cemetery, Baltimore, Maryland.
  • Francis Scott Key also has a school named after him in Brooklyn, New York. I.S 117 is a junior high school located in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn on Willoughby Avenue. It houses 6th, 7th, and 8th grade classrooms as well as a District 75 Special Education unit. The Special Education classes include children who are emotionally disturbed. For more information on the school and its programs please visit the schools main site, P369k, located in Downtown Brooklyn.
  • A monument to Key was commissioned by San Francisco businessman James Lick, who donated some $60,000 for a sculpture of Key to be raised in Golden Gate Park.[20] The travertine monument was executed by sculptor William W. Story in Rome in 1885–87.[20][21] The city of San Francisco recently allocated some $140,000 to renovate the Key monument, which was about to be lost to environmental degradation if repairs weren't made. Repairs were recently finished on the monument located in the music concourse outside the de Young Museum.
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