Francis Scott Key was born on August 1st, 1779 in Fredrick (Carroll) County, Maryland. He was born to Anne Phoebe Penn Dagworthy and Captain John Ross Key on their family plantation. He spent all of his life in Maryland, studying at the St. Johns College in Annapolis Maryland. He became an American lawyer, and author and an amateur poet. He was best known for his poem that he wrote and is now our National Anthem, “The Star Spangled Banner”. During the war of 1812, he was captured by the British Army. As he was looking out at the harbor in Baltimore, he saw the flag through all of the haze. He ended up escaping and writing about his experience which was first called “The Defense of Fort McHenry”, which he then published in the Patriot on September 20th, 1814. From 1817 until death, he served as a Vice President of the American Bible Society. In 1843, he died at the home of his daughter Elizabeth Howard in Baltimore from lung cancer.
The Star Spangled Banner:
Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thru the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream:
Tis the star-spangled banner: O, long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
O, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand,
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Francis Scott Key was born on August 1st, 1779 in Fredrick (Carroll) County, Maryland. He was born to Anne Phoebe Penn Dagworthy and Captain John Ross Key on their family plantation. He spent all of his life in Maryland, studying at the St. Johns College in Annapolis Maryland. He became an American lawyer, and author and an amateur poet. He was best known for his poem that he wrote and is now our National Anthem, “The Star Spangled Banner”. During the war of 1812, he was captured by the British Army. As he was looking out at the harbor in Baltimore, he saw the flag through all of the haze. He ended up escaping and writing about his experience which was first called “The Defense of Fort McHenry”, which he then published in the Patriot on September 20th, 1814. From 1817 until death, he served as a Vice President of the American Bible Society. In 1843, he died at the home of his daughter Elizabeth Howard in Baltimore from lung cancer.
The Star Spangled Banner:
Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thru the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream:
Tis the star-spangled banner: O, long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
O, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand,
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!