Final Resting Place

In the final months of his life, Francis Scott Key enjoyed visits to Terra Rubra farm, his boyhood home not far from Frederick Town, and thought and wrote about the end of life and his hopes of immortality in a life to come. He died at his daughter’s home in Baltimore on January 11, 1843, and was buried nearby in Old St Paul’s Cemetery. In 1866, his family moved his remains to a plot in this cemetery so he could lie, as he wished, in the shadow of Catoctin Mountain. In 1898, the Key Monument Association reinterred Key and his wife in the circle and erected above their graves a granite monument bearing his bronze figure. Italian-born sculptor Pompeo Coppini completed the Key Monument in 1898 at a cost of $30,000, with schoolchildren across the nation donating pennies, nickels, and more to help pay for it. At the top, Key holds the manuscript of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and points to the nation’s flag; seated below is Columbia, representing patriotism, flanked by allegorical youths representing defense and music. A bronze plaque on the rear of the monument bears all four verses of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and Coppini formed every letter although he did not yet know the English language.

Frederick, Maryland · United States