The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1871-06-30
Friday, june 80. 1871.
-,.TRE sTAR-sPANGLED BANNER.
How IL was composed and set 10 music, as
related by an OctOgenarian.
And you know Francis Key p

/" And you know Francis Key"
"Knew him! Why he lived but q
few doors above my fathers house.
There were once two brothers, John
Ross and Philip Barton Key. Philip
was an officer in the British army dur
ing the Revolutionary war, while John
was in that of the United States.
John lived on Pipes Creek, near fancy
town, Frederick County, Maryland,
where Francis and his sister Anna,
Johns only children, were born. There
was an exiled Scotchman MIR. Bruce-sald
to have been heir to the throne of Scot
land-who had built mill on Pipes
Creek, and there, in company with
this noble old aristocrat, Francis spent
isearly boyhood. The brothers, Philip
and John, were large, manly looking
fellows, but Frank and Anna were of
much smaller mould. Anna Key was
4 beautiful little girl, with the cheerful
est face and most pleasant smile ever
saw. When they moved into town,
near my fathers, Frank was about half
grown and ready to enter as a law STU
dent with Roger b. fancy, then at the
head of the Frederick bar Roger was
a tailagaunt fellow, as lean, they used
TO say, as Potomac herring, and as
shrewd as the shrewdest. He married
bright little Anna 1t was like the
union of a hawk and q sky-lark; but
she lived to be the wife of Chief JUS
tice of the United States, and I never
heard that either of them repented of
their marriage. Mr.. fancy was strict
Catholic, and Frank IN Episcopalian,
not considered very Jealous and sharp
in his profession, and much given TO
dreaming. He went to Virginia and
brought home wife much larger and
taller than himself, went to housekeep-
ing on Market Street, and had couple
of little children when L left home to
seek my fortune in Lancaster, Penu-
sylvania.
You have heard of Admiral Cock
burn, who commanded the British fleet
The atrocious scoundrell Words can
never paint the miserable coward in
his true colors. After his depredatiOni
along the Eastern shore of Maryland
there followed the sacking of Wash
ington, the battle of North Point, an6
the attempt of the enemy to take thu
city of Baltimore by water, as they ha(
failed to do 1t by land. You know al
about the bombardment of Fort M
Henry, the city's main defense. Key
could watch all the enemy's prepare
tions, and he knew the danger they
foreboded. Through the terrific can
nonading of that midnight fight, while
the sky was lit up with the fiery course
of the flying bombs, do you think hi
could sleep? And as the struggle ceas
ed npon the coming morning, and b
looked through the dim twilight 70
the flag of his country, his heart sicl
with fear and doubt, could he help tn
grand outburst of that first verse
And then, as through the mists of tn
deep the banner doomed in the morn
ing suns first rays, and he exclaimed
"'Tis the star-spangled banner! oh, Ion
Ger the land of the free and the home
the br4ve!"
il was n prayer all in one; and theI
has never been any thing like il since.
Mr.. Hendon stopped to wipe his heate
face with his red bandana handkerchie
and take n few rapid strides across I'll
floor. He had forgotten his car
and the weight of his eighty year
in this Renaissance of his strong youn
manhood; and If Admiral CockbuT
had that moment stood before him,
the flesh-and-blood insolence of h
real self, i would have been the chrol
icler of his fate.
"Have you heard Francis Key
poem? said one of GUINNESS, coming
one evening, as we lay scattered over ii
green hill near the Captains marque
1t was rude copy, and written in
scrawl which Horace Greeley mig
have mistaken for his own. He read
aloud, once, twice, three times, until Il
entire division seemed electrified by
pathetic eloquence. An idea seIZ;
Ferd Durang. Hunting up volun
of old flute music, which was in som
body's tent, he impatiently whistle
snatches of tune after tune, just as tn
caught his eye. One. called AnacreC
in Heaven Il have played it often, f
it was in my book that he found Il
struck his fancy and rivited his attic
ton. Note after note fell from /
puckered lips until, with leap and
shout, he exclaimed, 'boys, I've hit il
and, fitting the tune to the words, the
rang out for the first time the song
the star-spangled banner How t
men shouted and clapped, for never w
there wedding of poetry and mus
made under such inspiriting influence
Getting brief furlough, the brothe
sang it on the stage of the Holiday Sire
Theatre soon after. 1t was caught
in the camp, and sang around our bi
vouac fires, and whistled in the stree
and, when peace was declared, and '
scattered to our homes, carried to tho
sands of firesides as the most precio
relic of the war of 1872. Ferdinai
Durang died. do not know where
and Frank Keys bones lie in the Gel
etery. at Fredricktown; but ] que
that song will live as long as there
an American boy to sing it."-M
Nellie Eyster, an HGrPer'S Magazit
for July.