Many amusing stories are told of Georgetown’s early days, when the Scotch element were so strong in its population that a man could not be appointed to the office of flour inspector without subscribing to a test oath declaring his disbelief in the doctrine of “transsubstantiation in the sacrament of the Lord’s supper”; when the city fathers sought to save the expense of employing a surveyor to calculate the width of the Potomac at a point where a bridge was to be built, by ordering out all good citizens to pull at the opposite ends of a measuring-rope; and when the big triangle which was pounded as an alarm of fire fell from the belfry in which it hung, and fire-alarms were sounded thereafter by blowing a fish-horn through the streets. But none of these tales will have an interest for most visitors equal to the local version of the origin of the “Star-Spangled Banner.” For Georgetown was Francis Scott Key’s old home.
As the story goes, part of the British forces which marched upon Washington in the summer of 1814 passed through Upper Marlboro, Maryland, on a day when Doctor William Beanes, a prominent physician, was entertaining several friends at dinner. As the gentlemen talked, they grew more and more indignant against the invaders, and, news being brought to them at table that a few red-coated stragglers were still in town committing depredations after the main body of their comrades had passed on, some one suggested that the party go out and arrest these men as disturbers of the peace. This was done, but to little effect; for as soon as the stragglers got away, they hastened to catch up with the army and lodge a complaint with their officers, who at once sent back a squad of soldiers to arrest the arresters. Three of the dining party, including Beanes, were carried off to Admiral Cockburn’s flagship, which was lying in the Patuxent River. Cockburn, after administering a disciplinary lecture to the trio, dismissed the others but took Beanes as a prisoner on his ship to Baltimore.
Key, who was Beanes’s nephew, hastened to Baltimore as soon as he heard of the doctor’s plight, and under a flag of truce went aboard the vessel to intercede with Cockburn for his uncle’s release. His plea was vain; and Cockburn would not even let him go ashore again till after the bombardment of Fort McHenry. When Key returned to Georgetown, he related his adventures at the next meeting of the local glee-club, and his fellow members urged him to put his narrative into verse. He read his production at a later meeting, and the club introduced it to the public, who adopted it as the national anthem.