The Myth of HMS Minden and ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’: Where did it originate?

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes1 See, for example: King, The World of Patrick O’Brian, appendix; Murphey and Stapleton, A History of Asia, 439; Rose, Between Boston and Bombay, 130. The Times of India ran a story on 9 Sep. 2018, titled ‘What ties The Star-Spangled Banner to Bombay’s dockyard’. Even the Marine Museum in Raigad near Mumbai, and the American Museum of the GI in College Station, Texas, repeat this myth in their exhibits.2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_ Minden_(1810), accessed July 2023. A few blogs and articles on the internet claim that Minden saw service during the War of 1812 in the Chesapeake Bay and that Francis Scott Key was aboard when he wrote ‘Defense of Fort M’Henry’, which became the lyrics for ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’.3 Davies and Mudie, HMS Trincomalee: Frigate 1817, 17.4 The career of Minden is from Winfield, British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817, 77. My thanks to Rif for his assistance.5 Carey (ed.), The British in Java, 510.6 Williams, A Year in China, 346.7 Library of Congress: Abraham Lincoln papers, Series 1, General Correspondence, 1833– 1916: William C. Noyes to Abraham Lincoln, 3 Jan. 1863, https://www.loc.gov/resource/mal.2093800/?st=gallery accessed July 20238 Items supposedly from HMS Minden showed up in two auctions held in Maine in 2001 and 2002. The first listed a desk with a tag that read ‘China trade davenport desk in oak of HMS Minden upon which Star-Spangled Banner was written’. The provenance stated that the davenport was bought in Hong Kong in 1858 by Caleb T. Smith (head of an American merchant firm in China). Pennington, ‘Spring Sale in Thomaston’, 14E-15E. The second listed a framed mirror with an eagle crest, having a tag stating that it was made in Hong Kong ‘from the wood of the ship Minden, on board of which was written the Star-Spangled Banner’. Sisco, ‘The Nancy Prince Collection’, 46B-47B.9 Lossing, The Pictorial Field-book of the War of 1812, 956–7.10 Eshelman and Sheads, Chesapeake Legends and Lore from the War of 1812, 72–4.11 Giles, ‘Francis Scott Key’s Truce Ship’, 4–5.