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
The Georgetown Metropolitan 
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