Pickersgill’s Pratt Street house, now the Star-Spangled Banner Flag House Museum. They pieced together strips of loosely woven English wool bunting then laid the whole flag out on the expansive floor of a brewery near Mrs.
She labored for seven weeks with her 13-year-old daughter, Caroline, two nieces, 13-year-old Eliza Young and 15-year-old Margaret Young, a 13-year-old African-American indentured servant, Grace Wisher, and possibly her mother, Rebecca Young, who had taught her the trade. The job went out to a 37-year-old widow, Mary Pickersgill, an experienced ship and signal flag maker. The garrison flag (30 feet by 42 feet) had been ordered by the fort’s commander, Major George Armistead, the year before along with a smaller storm flag (17 feet by 25 feet). If not during the actual bombardment of Fort McHenry, then certainly when the garrison flag was raised at 9 a.m., all three gentlemen undoubtedly saw the flag flying over fort. The giant flag (30 by 42 feet) would become the Star-Spangle Banner.īecause of its great size, the flag needed to be spread on the empty malt house floor of a nearby brewery for assembly by Pickersgill and her helpers. Mary Pickersgill, along with her teenage daughter, mother, nieces, and servants, painstakingly hand sewed a new garrison flag for Fort McHenry in 1813. Beanes were returned to their truce boat but still kept under guard there they unwittingly found themselves at the very center of the Battle for Baltimore. Before the battle commenced, Key, Skinner, and Dr. frigate Surprise and their truce boat and crew towed behind. As the enemy fleet traveled north up the Bay, the three Americans were transferred to the H.M. However, the doctor and the truce party were detained to prevent them from reporting the British plans to attack Baltimore, which they had been privy to. ship-of-the-line Tonnant, the party was greeted coldly by the senior British officers when the purpose of their mission was revealed.Īt first General Ross was unwilling to release the doctor, but when shown the letters from wounded Englishmen lauding their medical treatment, the general and his naval colleagues agreed to let Beanes go. Boarding Vice Admiral Alexander Cochrane’s flagship H.M. After obtaining letters from British wounded attesting to the good treatment they had received at Bladensburg, Key met Skinner in Baltimore where they boarded a truce ship and sailed south to the British fleet near the mouth of the Potomac River. Skinner had conducted many dealings with the British and was familiar with the commanding officers. They approved a mission to seek the release of Beanes and requested that American Prisoner Exchange Agent John Stuart Skinner accompany Key. Key met with President Madison, who then met with Brigadier General John Mason, the commissary general of prisoners. militia, he had served as a civilian aide at the Battle of Bladensburg.
He was well connected in the Federal City. Born in Frederick County, Key, a pious man who had considered becoming an Episcopal priest, had attended St. West then approached his brother-in-law, the influential young Georgetown lawyer, Francis Scott Key, for assistance. Richard West, a close friend of the doctor’s, hurried off to Benedict to plead for Beanes’s release, but his efforts were rebuffed. The next stop might be Halifax, Nova Scotia, or, even worse, Dartmoor Prison, England. Beanes, arrested while in his bed, soon found himself and two companions in irons onboard a Royal Navy ship. The British brass was not amused by what they considered a betrayal.
Beanes helped local citizens arrest the troublemakers. Enemy stragglers and at least one deserter were looting in the neighborhood and Dr.
The trouble began when the British were returning to their ships. He had cordially entertained both Major General Robert Ross and Rear Admiral George Cockburn when the British Army had marched through on its way to attack Washington. William Beanes of Upper Marlboro was a respected physician and Revolutionary War veteran well known in the Washington region. “Then, in that hour of deliverance, and joyful triumph, the heart spoke and, Does not such a country, and such defenders of their country, deserve a song?” As a result, Key created new lyrics to a popular song that later became the US national anthem. This little-known incident led to a chain of events that put Francis Scott Key among the British ships bombarding Fort McHenry. William Beanes, arrested several stragglers for looting. As British troops returned to their ships after capturing Washington, DC, they passed through Upper Marlboro where local citizens, including Dr.
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