Tag Archives: Francis Scott Key

The Morning Metropolitan

Water St. by Madame Meow.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

  • Hmmm, it must be the post-election hangover, but there just isn’t much going on today.
  • Well how about this: It’s a little late but apparently Tuesday was the 196th anniversary of Francis Scott Key writing the poem that would eventually become the Star Spangled Banner. Baltimore takes all the credit for it since it happened there, but Key was a highly regarded Georgetown resident. His house stood at 3516 M St. until it was torn down in 1947 for a bridge that would bear his name. Check out more at the fantastic Peabody Room when the Georgetown Library reopens October 18th.

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Georgetown’s Dueling Past

Image Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Image Courtesy of the Library of Congress

GM was digging through some histories of Georgetown recently and found out that Georgetown was the scene of several duels as late as 1859 involving such characters as Henry Clay and two of Francis Scott Key’s sons.

According to the Chronicles of Georgetown, in 1826 Senator John Randolph of Virginia dueled Henry Clay in Georgetown. Senator Randolph was a vocal opponent to a strong federal government and apparently a total weirdo. From the Senate floor he said some pretty nasty things about Henry Clay for his activities as John Quincy Adams’ Secretary of State. He even went so far as to call him a “black-leg” which according to Dictionary.com means either a swindler (especially in gambling) or an infectious and fatal bovine disease causing gaseous swellings of the muscles.

They met for the duel on the banks of the Potomac. Continue reading

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