Monument City Blog

Inside of Police headquarters, located at War Memorial Plaza in downtown Baltimore, is a 19 inch cannonball found at Fort McHenry during preparation for the historic location’s upcoming bicentennial celebration of the Battle of Baltimore. The huge cannonball weighs 300 pounds and still contained black powder when it was discovered. The projectile was removed by the bomb squad and was placed in the foyer of headquarters along side numerous exhibits documenting the history of the Baltimore police force.

Nearby on Redwood Street, between South Street and S. Calvert Street, is another large cannonball from Fort McHenry memorialized in monument form. The ball was fired from a British Warship during the epic War of 1812 battle and landed inside the star-shaped fort. The enemy fire was given to Michael Keyser who in turn presented it to the city. The two monuments are part of a vast collection of Baltimore relics from the battle itself and the 100 year anniversary celebration that took place in 1914. I’m curious what the city government has in store for 2014.

Edmund George Lind was one of America’s earliest successful architects.  Born in England in 1829, Lind eventually studied at the London School of Design.  After apprenticing in several offices in his home country, he moved to New York City to work for Nathan G. Starkweather.  The partnership gained commissions in Baltimore with Lind completing Starkweather’s design of Mount Vernon’s First and Franklin Presbyterian Church.  The young architect soon switched firms, joining William T. Murdoch.  Edmund’s most famous work, the Peabody Institute Library, comes from this period.

Lind’s artistic endeavors were not limited to building design.  He was interested in the correlation between math, music and color.  Inspired by the acoustic properties of his physical creations, Edmund began using the number seven to create the perfect environment for sound.  He noticed the relationship between the seven colors of the spectrum and the seven tones of the diatonic scale.  Applying these principals to popular music of the time, Lind created visual representations of song.  One piece he transposed to color was Francis Scott Key’s Star-Spangled Banner.  His essays and drawings on the subject are kept at the Peabody Library.

On September 12, 1914, during the citywide centennial celebration of the writing of the Star-Spangled Banner, Baltimore dedicated Fort McHenry as a public park.  6400 school children were arranged on a grandstand in the form of a massive human flag.  The children, accompanied by a 250 piece marching band, sang Francis Scott Key’s historic anthem, a song inspired and written during the Battle of Baltimore.  The Star-Spangled Banner would finally become the nation’s official national anthem in 1931.  The George Armistead Monument at Fort McHenry was unveiled during the day’s festivities.

Edward Johnson (1769-1829) was elected in 1808 as the third mayor of Baltimore, replacing Thorowgood Smith.  Johnson was subsequently re-elected in 1810, 1812, 1814, 1819 (when George Stiles resigned) and 1822.  In the summer of 1812, with war against the British imminent, an angry mob of Baltimoreans trapped and tortured a group of tories at city jail.  Mayor Johnson arrived in order to quell the situation, advising the prisoners and negotiating with the mob.  His stance against the instigators was an important political decision as Baltimore, and the United States, moved away from vigilantism.  He is also noted for owning the brewery in which Mary Pickersgill sewed the Star-Spangled Banner, America’s most significant flag.

A doctor by trade, Johnson began his medical practice the same year he entered politics.  During a serious yellow fever outbreak in 1819, Johnson donated $150.00 of his own money for the publication of a medical report on the epidemic.  His efforts proved central in ending the citywide health crisis.  This historical tablet (placed across the street from Carroll Mansion) marks the location of his former home.  Brewer’s Park (recently replaced with a hotel) was once next door.

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This banner, the largest battle flag in existence (1914), measures 36 by 29 feet. It was made by Mrs. Mary Young Pickersgill and her two nieces. The material was cut at Mrs. Pickersgill’s home, “No. 60 Albemarle Street, Old Town” (Pratt and Albemarle Streets, Baltimore), and carried to a nearby brewery, where it was sewed together. During the bombardment it was pierced by a number of shots.  The flag was restored at the National Museum, Washington, D. C., where it is considered one of the most precious possessions of that institution.

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By 1873, when the banner was hung from a third-story window at the Boston Navy Yard, the great rectangle had been squared off. Some of the trimmings patched holes in the flag; others served as souvenirs.

Francis Scott Key, on a friendly mission to retrieve an imprisoned American doctor from a British warship, sailed out of Baltimore Harbor in early September, 1814.  On September 7, just a week before the Bombardment of Fort McHenry, Key and John Stuart Skinner boarded an enemy boat, eventually lobbying General Robert Ross for Dr. William Beanes’ release.  However, Key, Beanes and Skinner were not allowed to leave British captivity until after the Battle.  They returned to their ship but were tied to an enemy craft in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay.  On September 14th, after a day long barrage of mortar shells and Congreve rockets, Fort McHenry lowered its tattered flag and raised a much larger one in its place, inspiring Francis Scott to scribble a few stanzas on some letterhead.  Penned during battle with the British and eventually adapted to a British drinking song, the Star-Spangled Banner officially became America’s national anthem in 1931.

At 11 am on Tuesday, September 8th, 1914, the Francis Scott Key Buoy was lowered into the Patapsco River, marking the spot where the Baltimore lawyer, and sometimes poet, wrote the Star-Spangled Banner.  The ceremony was part of the week-long National Star-Spangled Centennial celebration.  Each year the buoy is removed before winter and replaced in the spring, allowing for maintenance and preservation.

Philip Barton Key II was the son of Francis Scott Key, writer of the Star-Spangled Banner.  Philip followed his father’s foot steps in the law profession, eventually becoming a United States Attorney for the District of Columbia.  He was a lady killer and was engaged in numerous affairs around the DC area.  In 1859, at forty years of age, Philip was murdered in Lafayette Square by Congressman Daniel Sickles.  Key was engaged in a public relationship with Sickles young wife, Teresa Bagioli Sickles.  The controversial politician found out about the ruse through an anonymous letter, and wasting no time, proceeded to gun the attorney down in the street.  Represented by famed lawyer Edwin Stanton, Sickles pleaded not guilty by temporary insanity, the first time in United States history this defense had been used.  During his brief incarceration, the Congressman received so many visitors that he was afforded the head jailer’s abode, and was never relieved of his firearm.  He was found innocent, then told the judge he had killed Key knowingly, claiming no double jeopardy.

Sickles later commanded troops at the Battle of Gettysburg during the Civil War, where he disobeyed orders and lost most of his men.  He was legally spared once again, allowing the old general to continue to thrive in American politics.  He lived to be nearly a hundred, outliving Key by over fifty years.

The Holliday Street Theatre used to be located directly across from Baltimore’s City Hall, at the present site of War Memorial Plaza.  Junius Brutus Booth, the father of John Wilkes Booth, made his first American appearance in the historic playhouse, as did the Star-Spangled Banner.  Aside from Philadelphia’s Walnut Street Theatre, the Holliday was the oldest in the country, having been built in 1785.  A Plaque, located at the base of War Memorial Plaza’s southern flagstaff, marks the original spot of the building.

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“Built by Thomas Wignell and Alexander Reinagle in 1794, it was a wooden structure and stood on Holliday Street near Peale’s Museum and directly across from the site of Baltimore’s future City Hall. Although it was officially the New Theatre, it soon became known as the Holliday. Later managers included William Warren and William B. Wood. After playing there John Howard Payne noted, “The attraction was the acting, not the scenery, of which the less said the better, nor the comfort experienced by the audience, since the seats were long, uncushioned benches without backs.” In 1813 it was replaced by a brick structure called the Baltimore Theatre, but again called the Holliday by Baltimoreans. “The Star Spangled Banner” received its first public performance there in 1819. The playhouse burned in 1873 and was rebuilt with a similar facade by John T. Ford, finally officially called the Holliday Street Theatre. Management was later assumed by John W. Albaugh. Long known as Baltimore’s “Old Drury,” it remained an important playhouse until shortly before its demolition in 1917.”

Hans Schuler’s Centennial Eagle, created for the centennial celebration of the writing of the Star-Spangled Banner, is displayed on City Hall’s second floor.  The sculpture, dedicated in 1914, was originally positioned on the outside front of the building, but has since been restored and moved inside.  A dedication plaque is affixed to the statue’s plinth.  Its inscription reads:

TO COMMEMORATE THE CENTENARY OF THE WRITING OF THE AMERICAN NATIONAL ANTHEM “THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER

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On the front of the United Methodist Church in Mount Vernon Place is a tablet to Francis Scott Key. The plaque was created, in 1912, by Hans Schuler and marks the location of the lawyer’s death.  Key died of pleurisy in his daughter’s home, formerly located on this site, at the age of 64.