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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 2, 1779 – January 11, 1843) was an American lawyer, an author, and an amateur poet who wrote the words to the United States national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner".

He was born to Ann Louis Penn Dagworthy (Charlton) and Capt John Ross Key at the family plantation Terra Rubra in what is now Carroll County, 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. Alexander Cochrane, RAdm. Sir George Cockburn and Major General Robert Ross. In 1832, Key served as the attorney for Sam Houston during his trial in the U.S. House of Representatives for assaulting another Congressman ^[1].

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 Hunt Morgan, guitarist Dana Key, and the American fashion designer and socialite Pauline de Rothschild.

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.

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.

His sister, Anne Phoebe Charlton Key, married Roger B. Taney, future Chief Justice of the United States and author of the Court's Dred Scott decision.

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

Robert Altman credited him with the "title song" of Brewster McCloud, though it contained only John Stafford Smith's instrumentals.

He is buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Frederick, next to Thomas Johnson, the first governor of Maryland, and friend Barbara Fritchie, who allegedly waved the American flag out of her home in defiance of Stonewall Jackson's march through the city during the Civil War.

1. ^ Sam Houston. Handbook of Texas Online.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Francis Scott Key

• Francis Scott Key's entry at the Songwriters' Hall of Fame
• Appleton's Biography edited by Stanley L. Klos
• Short biography
• Francis Scott Keys's biographic sketch at Find A Grave
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