The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-08-10
IN MEMORY OF A PATRIOT
HANDSOME MONUMENT DEDICATED
TO FRANCIS SCOTT KEY.
Grafton by Henry Watterson, Telling
How the .Star-SpangIed Hammer
Came to BE Written.

Key. the author of The Star-spangled
Banner" was honored to-day in this Ills
native city, by the dedication of a hand
some monument erected to his memory.
The preliminary ceremonies included a pa
rade, in which military and civic organiza-
tons from all parts of the State took part.
An grafton was delivered by the Hon.
Henry Watterson, of Kentucky: an address
by Mrs. Donald Mclean, of New York, and
an ode by Folger Mckinney, of Baltimore.
The cord which released the drapery, un-
covering the monument, was then drawn by
Miss Julia McHenry Howard granddaugh-
ter of Francis Scott Key Mr.. Watterson,
in the course of his address. said
The 'Star-spangled Banner owed very
niue 70 chance. IL was the emanation of a
psLlflOtlc IefVor as sincere and natural as
II was simple ana noble 1t sprang from one
OF those glorious Inspirations which, com
ing 10 al author unbidden, Seizes at once
upon the hearts and minds of men.
=. Inc circumstances which ushered it into
me world, hardly less tnan the words of
Inc poem, are full of patriotic exhllaration.
IL was during the darkest days of our sec
ond war of independence. An English army
nad lnVaoed and occupied the seat of the
capitol OF the Nation. An English squad
ron was in indisputed possession of the
chesapeake bay. There being nothing of
interest or value left within the vicinity OF
washington to detain them. the British
Were massing their land and naval forces
sailed down the Potomac, DR.. William
beanes. prominent citizen of Maryland,
VINO had been arrested at his home in Upper
marlboro charged with some ottense real
or 1ancled, was carried off a prisoner.
1t was to secure the liberation of this
gentleman, his neighbor and friend that
Francis Scott Key obtained leave of the
president to go to the British admiral un-
der flag of truce He was conveyed by
the cartel boat used for the exchange of
n Tl0 1n6 hxy h0 10 nj
ncer or the government. They proceeded
down the bay from Baltimore and found
the British fleet at the mouth of the Poto-
mac. Mr.. Key was courteously received by
Admiral Cochrane; but he was not encour-
aged as to the success of his mission until
letters from the English officers wounded
at Blandensburg ana left in the care of the
Americans were delivered to the friends
on the fleet to whom they had been written.
These bore such testimony to the kindness
with which they had been treated that it
was finally agreed that Dr. Beanes should
be released; but, as an advance upon Balti-
more was about to be made, it was required
that the party of Americans should remain
under guard on board their own vessel until
these operations were concluded. Thus it
was that the night of the 14th of Septem-
Der, 1914, Key witnessed the bombardment
of Fort McHenry which his song was to
render ilustrious.
He did not quit the deck the long night
through. With his single companion. the
flag officer, he watched every shell from
the moment it was fired until it fell. lis
an explosion followed Whilst the can
nonading continued they needed no further
assurance that their countrymen had not
capitulated. But quote the words of
Chief Justice fancy, repeating the account
gwen him by Key Immediately after, it
suddenly ceased some time before day; and,
the enemy's ships, they did not know
whether the fort had surrendered, the
attack upon it had been abandoned. They
paced the deck the residue of the night in
painful watching with intense
anxiety for the return of day, and looking
every few minutes at their watches to see
soon as it dawned and before it was light
enough to see objects at a distance, their
glasses were turned to the fort, uncertain
whether they should see there the stars and
stripes or the flag of the enemy Blessed
glorious vigil! that it gave us the Star
During the night the conception of the
poem began to form itself in Keys mind
With the early glow of the morning, when
the long agony of suspense had been turned
into the rapture of eXultation, his feelings
found expression in completed lines of verse,
which he wrote upon the back of letter he
ished the piece on the boat that carried him
ashore and wrote out a clear copy that
same dkening at his hotel in Baltimore
Next day he read this to his friend and
kinsman. Judge Nicholson, who was so
pleased with it that he carried 1t to the Of
flee of the Baltimore American, where it
Samuel Sands by name, and thence issued
as a broadside. Within an hour after, it was
circulating all over the city, hailed with
delight by the excited people. Published in
the succeeding issue of the American, and
elsewhere reprinted, it went straight to the
popular heart. 1t was quickly seized for
musical adaptation. First sung in a tavern
adjoining the Holiday-street Theater, in
Baltimore, by Charles Durang. an actor
whose brother, Ferdinand Durang, had set
it to an old air. Its production on the stage
of that theater was the occasion Of Spon-
taneous and unbounded enthusiasm. Wher-
ever it was heard its effect was electrical,
and thenceforward 1t was universally ac-
copied as the national anthem
The monument consists of a circular ped
eStal Of gray granite a series OF wide
spreading bases. The height of this pedestal
is fourteen feet nine inches and its breadth
at the base is fifteen feet, making the base
forty-fiVe feet in circumference 1t is eX-
ceedingly simple in design, save for band
of carving around the base of the die and
a band of stars under the cornice, the sculp-
the simplicity and harmony of its outline
than to forid elaboration. Nevertheless. the
whole effect of the design is one of elabora-
ton, owing TO its SculptorS. These consist
of a bronze statue nine feet high, surmount-
ing the granite pedestal-a portrait of Fran
els Scott Key. Key is represented on ship
board BY the daWnS early light, and upon
the band that grdles the pedestal beneath
his feet is the inscription, " ''ris the star
spangled banner which certifes that these
were the words that inspired his soul when
he discovered that THE flag is still there"
In a crypt deeply sunk in the eight-foot
foundation of the monument repose the re-
mains of Francis Scott Key, and his wife,
Mary Taylor Key. They were removed there
from their former resting place in an OBJ
scure section of the cemetery by the as
ISOLATION, by permission of his two daugh-
ters Mrs. Howard and Mrs. Steele, prior to
their death which occurred only recautlV