News-Info-Alerts

Re: Flag House, Key & the Anthemn

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: June 13, 2003

"Flag House gets a touch of glass
Museum's $2.4 million 'Great Flag Window' dedicated at ceremony

By Jamie Stiehm Sun Staff

From the courtyard, the 1,260 square feet of red, white and blue glass shimmers as a vivid illustration of the national anthem's inspiration.

"Some have asked, 'Was the flag really that big?' The answer is yes," said Sally Johnston, executive director of the Star-Spangled Banner Flag House and War of 1812 Museum, which dedicated yesterday the $2.4 million glass replica of the flag said to have flown over Fort McHenry during the British bombardment in 1814.

The tiny brick museum, once the home of Baltimore seamstress Mary Pickersgill, commissioned the window to show the magnitude of the flag that she and other household members stitched in the house and a warehouse next door.

"That's what it's all about, that this was made in that little flag house," Johnston said. The "Great Flag Window" at the Pickersgill home at 844 E. Pratt St. faces the harbor that Fort McHenry was built to protect.

"While they were hiding out in barns and getting burned in Washington, the people in Baltimore built the fort and dug trenches," Mayor Martin O'Malley said yesterday at the dedication ceremony. "They saved this country."

During the War of 1812, British troops sacked Washington, but were rebuffed by Baltimore defenders. Early the next morning, Francis Scott Key, a Washington lawyer being held as a prisoner of war on a naval vessel, caught a glimpse of the mammoth flag flying over the fort.

The sight was a sign that the battle had been won, moving him to write the poem that later became the words to the national anthem.

George Armistead, the fort's commander, had ordered a hand-sewn flag be made that was big enough for the enemy to see from across the harbor.

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. also spoke at the ceremony, which featured soprano Janice Chandler singing the national anthem.

David L. DeMuth, 41, the vice president of the Flag House board of directors, said yesterday that he, like many Baltimoreans, visited the house in elementary school, but didn't return for years.

The 30-foot-by-42-foot replica matches the original flag, now undergoing a preservation project in the Smithsonian Institution.

The glass for the window was made in Germany in 400-pound panels that were shipped to Baltimore. The replica flag has 15 stars and 15 stripes, consistent with the actual flag, which reflected the young republic's 15 states.

The flag largely was financed by a bequest from a Baltimore harbormaster and president of the museum's board of directors, Jean Hofmeister, who specified in his will that some of the $1 million he donated be used to display a life-size replica of the flag.

Johnston said she and an architect had an "epiphany" when it occurred to them that the flag could be constructed of glass and serve a dual purpose: honor Pickersgill's handiwork and make the museum more visible.

One of the architects for the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture under construction next door predicted his project would benefit from the new work of historical art.

"One of our major windows looks into [the flag] window," said Gary Bowden.

"There will be a conversation between the two."

© 2003 by The Baltimore Sun"