The man who named that flag, Francis Scott Key, witnessed the Battle of Baltimore aboard a sixty-foot sloop in the harbor. How Key found himself in the harbor while the battle raged is an intriguing and not widely known story.
Francis Scott Key was born on August 1, 1779, at his affluent familyâ??s estate called Terra Rubra in Frederick County in western Maryland. His great grandfather, Philip Key, had come to Maryland from England in the early 1720s. When he was ten years old, Key went to Annapolis to attend St. Johnâ??s College. He graduated from that prestigious small liberal arts institution in 1796, then studied law under Judge J. T. Chase in Annapolis.
Francis Scott Key began practicing law in 1801 in Frederick, Maryland. His partner was Roger B. Taney, who married Keyâ??s sister Anne in 1806. Taney went on in 1836 to become the fifth chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Shortly after Key married Mary Tayloe Lloyd in Annapolis 1802, he moved to the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C, to practice law with his uncle, Philip Barton Key. Francis Scott Key became one of the cityâ??s most prominent attorneys, eventually serving as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, and arguing many cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. An amateur poet, Key also was a very religious man who was active in the Episcopal Church. He died in Baltimore on January 11, 1843.
The circumstance that led to Keyâ??s ringside seat at the Battle of Baltimore took place in the immediate aftermath of the British sacking of Washington. Before all of the British troops made their way aboard ships bound for Baltimore, a group of them raided several farms in Maryland outside Washington. Dr. William Beanes, a prominent Upper Marlboro physician and a friend of Key, organized opposition to the renegade British troops. After Beanesâ??s men captured some of the pillaging British troops, he and several other Americans were arrested and taken prisoner by the British.
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