Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1881-08-10

their glasses trained to the service
brought joy to their vigil. The move
ments of the British revealed the dis
comfture of their troops on land, and
with the orders for their re-embarking
came permission for the American YES
sci to land 1t was such scenes as
these, and under the thrilling excite
ment of the very occasion itself, that
our national anthem was conceived,
and. indeed, mainly written. Those
who knew Mr.. Keys habit of commit
ting his strains to verse upon the spot
and of covering the backs of letters
which he carried in bis pocket with the
improvised lines can well understand
that his immortal lyric, merely the
narrative and expression of his feelings
on this occasion, was begun while he
was watching the retreat of the enemy,
finished on his way to the shore in the
boat, and written out in full exactly as
it now stands at his hotel in Baltimore
on the very evening after the exciting
events which evoked it. Judge Mich
olson, the husband of his wife's sister,
was the first person to whom the au-
thor read the lines, and he was SO
pleased with it that he had handbills
of it printed and posted, which were
read and received with enthusiastic in
terest by the Baltimoreans, rejoicing
in the successful defense made for their
city.
1t was set to music by Charles Du-
rang, native of Lancaster, Pa, and
the first public rendition of it was at
Ford's Theatre on September IL, 1914.
Its composers naTe, by the way is
seldom to be found in musical cata-
logues. Whatever the merits of its
composition, it was a matter of little
concern to its author Inclined as he
was to rythmical expression of his
fancies he had an ignorance of musical
composition that would be utterly in
conceivable if it were not, by a most
remarkable illustration of the law of
heredity, made plain in the case of
some of his descendants. He could
not tell one tune from another. Old
Hundred, Yankee Doodle, Hail Colum-
bia, and the Star Spangled Banner
were entirely undistinguishable to the
ear of Francis Scott Key. Upon the
occasion of the visit to Tuscaloosa, be-
fore referred to, he was serenaded, and
the local band naturally played the
music of his famous song. To the
great astonishment and amusement of
the gentlemen about him, he innocent
ly remarked that sit was pretty air."
densely ignorant of the tune they were
playing. A daughter inherited the
same lack of musical aptitude, and her
daughter, in turn; and now, in the
fourth generation, greatgranddaugh-
ter of the author of the Star Spangled
Banner has vainly tried for years to ac-
complish enough musical knowledge to
know that tune when it is played.
In personal appearance Mr.. Key was
tall and thin, cleanly shaven, with a
head of heavy brown hair, disposed to
curl slightly. He had face of marked
beauty, of peculiar oval form, and o
notable sweetness of countenance. He
had large, dreamy, poetic eyes and
genuinely sympathetic and mobile ex-
preston. A picture in Independence
Hall represents him as young man.
A portrait in possession of his daugh-
ter, Mrs. Turner, who with some of
her defendants is resident in California,
has been copied from the statue to
adorn the monument which is to be
erected to him there. in accordance
with the $50, 900 bequest for that pur-
pose Of James Lick, the eccentric Cali
fornin millionaire