The Man Behind the Bridge: Francis Scott Key
By • March 28, 2024 One Comment 444
Our hearts and prayers go out to those who died because of the catastrophic collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge which spanned the Patapsco River, just south of Baltimore and its harbor.
The effects of the March 26 tragedy will linger for years. Recovery and cleanup comes first as Baltimore struggles with its blocked seaport and expected loss of shipping revenue. A new bridge will surely rise.
The uplifting and expansive steel arch bridge, completed in 1977, was part of the city’s beltway and landscape. It was named for Washington attorney Francis Scott Key, who witnessed the British bombardment of Fort McHenry in 1814 and then penned what became our national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The bridge was located near the spot where Key was detained by British officers on an adjoining boat. He was on a presidential mission to secure the release of an American prisoner as “the bombs bursted in air” over the fort that stopped the Royal Navy from capturing Baltimore.
At the time, Key lived with his family in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., and worked as a lawyer, later becoming the U.S. Attorney General for D.C.
His name and story are well known in Georgetown, where the other Francis Scott Key Bridge, opened in 1923, connects D.C. to Virginia over the Potomac River. There is also a Francis Scott Key Park, next to the bridge on M Street, which displays a bust of Key and flies a Star-Spangled Banner flag. Thanks to private funds, it opened in 1993 is now part of the National Park Service.
What Key saw on that September night almost 210 years ago — after the Burning of Washington one month earlier — was the bravery of Baltimore’s soldiers at the fort that forced a retreat by the British, conquerors of Napoleon. “Our flag was still there.” To Key and others, America seemed to be “a heaven-rescued land” and would begin its historic expansion upon war’s end.
Today, we wish that positive, even patriotic, energy bestowed upon those rebuilding this shattered part of Baltimore, our neighbor.
Baltimoreans, Marylanders and Americans, all together, the task begins.
Francis Scott Key owned enslaved people and as DC Attorney General opposed abolition. It should be mentioned whenever he is referred to.