I have been thinking about where I might take my first grandchild who will reach the age of 12 this year. The two places that appeal to me the most are Baltimore and Philadelphia. Hmmmm.....I first have to admit that I am not a resort person....nor does it make sense to take her to a place such as an amusement park since that would be a lot more fun with cousins! And one of the things that swings the balance to the two cities already mentioned is that we could take the train from Huntington to either place. Both cities are serviced by the Cardinal. Philly is just a bit farther.
Ok....phooey....segway tours of Philly require everyone to be 14. We might save that tour until then.
So....what made me start this blog post tonight is that I received a Banner Lecture Series flyer from the VA Historical Society that announced a lecture on July 2 for "What so Proudly We Hailed: Francis Scott Key, a Life". So I did a quick look at Wikipedia. And Francis Scott Key was a really interesting man! He owned slaves. He was a lawyer and took on cases where masters were trying to retrieve slaves that they owned. But he also took on cases (for free) of slaves who were seeking their freedom. Sometime in the 1830's he manumitted seven enslaved people, one of whom (Clem Johnson) continued to work for him for wages as his farm's foreman, supervising several other enslaved people. Francis Scott Key was a complicated man. I like him.
AND
Key throughout his career also represented several slaves seeking their freedom in court (for free), as well as several masters seeking return of their runaway human property.[15][16] Key, Judge William Leigh of Halifax and bishop William Meade were administrators of the will of their friend John Randolph of Roanoke, who died without children and left a will directing his executors to free his more than four hundred slaves. Over the next decade, beginning in 1833, the administrators fought to enforce the will and provide the freed slaves land to support themselves.[17]
Obviously he was doing the best that he could in a very complicated time period. I like the man....
OK why do I choose this location? I would like to work on the question:
"Did our ancestor, Frederick George Louis Beuhring take part in the battle that Francis Scott Keyes watched from a British Battleship
(see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Scott_Key)
or was that not part of his War of 1812 commitment?
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