Mount Vernon Literary Tour: Francis Scott Key

Be Here Stories

The Mount Vernon Literary Tour is created by The Baltimore National Heritage Area (BNHA), which promotes, preserves, and enhances Baltimore's historic and cultural legacy and natural resources for current and future generations. A site-by-site walking tour of this and other destinations is available at www.https://bnha.visit.zone/ Located at Mount Vernon United Methodist Church, 10 East Mount Vernon Place Transcript: Before this magnificent church was built in 1872, a mansion occupied the site. In this home died the author of America’s most famous poem, one memorized by virtually everyone if only so they can sing it at sporting events from junior high volleyball to the Super Bowl. Francis Scott Key (b. 1779, d. 1843), author of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” passed away while visiting his daughter and son-in-law, Elizabeth and Charles Howard, the mansion’s occupants. Key, a prominent attorney and amateur poet, had witnessed the 1814 British bombardment of Fort McHenry and penned his historic verses after seeing the fort’s gigantic American flag still flying the following morning. Key was a slaveholder, giving particular irony to his poem’s most memorable line. Indeed, abolitionists suggested that “Land of the Free and Home of the Oppressed” would be more accurate. Despite this and other controversies, “The Star-Spangled Banner” became the National Anthem in 1931.