Most people don't know that September 14 is a special day in
American History: It was the day in 1814 that the British bombed Baltimore for
25 hours, but the city stood, and so did the nation. It was also the day that
our country’s National Anthem was written.
Most people also don't know that one of the Medical &
Chirurgical Faculty’s founding members had an essential role in it. William
Beanes, M.D. is a name that should be more well-known than it is, but we are
working to correct that and give him the recognition that he deserves.
Here is the story.
The Medical & Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland was founded in
1799, just years after our country was born. Many of MedChi’s early
members had fought in the American Revolution, and were prepared to fight again
in the War of 1812, and in the Battles of North Point and Baltimore, which took
place in September of 1814.
Fort McHenry, which was defended during the Battle of Baltimore,
was named after another of MedChi’s earliest members, James McHenry. However,
it is one of our founding members, William Beanes, M.D. of Prince George’s
County, Maryland, who played a pivotal, yet largely unknown, role in the
history of our National Anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner.
If not for Dr. Beanes, Francis Scott Key would not have been on a
ship in Baltimore’s Harbor, and he would never have written the poem which
became our National Anthem.
William Beanes was born at Brooke Ridge, a thousand-acre farm near
Croome in Prince George's County, on January 24, 1749.
There were no medical schools when Dr. Beanes studied medicine, so
he most likely apprenticed with a local physician. Professionally, his
reputation spread beyond the county, and in 1799, when the Medical and
Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland was established, he was one of its founders and
a member of its first examining board.
As the War of 1812 raged, in August of 1814, the British Army
sailed up the Potomac River, planning to burn the young nation’s capital,
Washington, to the ground. Some of the army marched up the banks of the
Patuxent and Potomac Rivers, and through Upper Marlborough, where Dr. Beanes
lived.
British General Ross selected Dr. Beanes’ home as his
headquarters, and Dr. Beanes agreed not to object to his presence or cause the
troops harm. Because Beanes chose not to fight against the occupation of his
home, he was believed to be sympathetic to the British cause. Unbeknownst to
the British, however, because it was feared that the British would burn the
capital city of Annapolis, Dr. Beanes had secretly hidden Maryland state
records on his property for safekeeping.
However, when the British Army returned to Upper Marlborough after
burning Washington, they were jubilant, drunk and marauding. Dr. Beanes
and some of his neighbors were forced to arrest some of the most badly behaved
of the group. One prisoner escaped and reported to General Ross that Dr. Beanes
had taken some prisoners.
General Ross returned to Upper Marlborough and arrested Dr. Beanes
in the middle of the night. There was great outrage at Dr. Beanes’ arrest, and
for the “great rudeness and indignity heaped upon a respectable and aged old
man.” Dr. Beanes travelled with the British Army down the Potomac River
and up the Chesapeake Bay, as the British prepared to burn Baltimore, “a nest
of pirates”, as they had done to Washington.
At the same time, a young lawyer named Francis Scott Key, a nephew
of MedChi’s first President, Upton Scott, was engaged to free Dr. Beanes from
the British Army. Key travelled to Baltimore with letters of support from
President James Madison, as well as letters from British prisoners whose
injuries Dr. Beanes had treated only weeks earlier in Upper Marlborough.
Dr. Beanes was being held on the Minden, a truce ship
in the waters just south of Baltimore, and Key sailed out to the Minden to
negotiate for his release. While Key was negotiating with the British, the
Battle of Baltimore was beginning. For more than 25 hours the battle
raged, and bombs rained down on Fort McHenry from the British ships moored in
the Patapsco River.
Dr. Beanes and Francis Scott Key watched and waited all through
the night. As long as bombs were being shot back from the Fort, the men knew
that all was not lost and the Fort still stood. Towards the morning, the cannon
fire slowed and then stopped, followed by an ominous silence from across the
water. Both men were gripped by hope and fear. Was the Fort lost to the
British and would Baltimore suffer as Washington had, just weeks earlier?
As the dawn broke, Francis Scott Key and Dr. Beanes were able to
see that the flag was still there, flying above Fort McHenry. They knew that
the British had not been able to capture Baltimore.
As the men sailed back to Baltimore, Francis Scott Key penned the
now famous poem on the back of an envelope. It was printed in a local paper and
then set to the tune of an old drinking song, To Anacreon In Heaven.
Dr. Beanes returned to his home, Academy Hill in Upper
Marlborough, and continued to practice medicine. He died at age 80 in October
of 1828. Dr. Beanes is buried in a small graveyard in Upper Marlborough,
and is remembered throughout Prince George’s county where several roads,
schools and parks bear his name, and continue to tell his story.
In 1914, MedChi placed
a bronze plaque at the gates to the graveyard. In October 2013, MedChi President, Russell Wright, MD,
participated in a ceremony at the gravesite where the Daughters of the War of
1812 placed a new plaque detailing Dr. Beanes’ role in the Star-Spangled
Banner.
William Beanes was born at Brooke Ridge, a thousand-acre farm near Croome in Prince George's County, on January 24th, 1749. 
