Ed Okonowicz, AS ’69, ’84M, who read the Messenger story about the conservation work on the original Star-Spangled Banner by Suzanne Thomassen Krauss, AS ’82M, points out that Ft. McHenry, where the flag flew, has another UD connection. The fort is named for James McHenry, a graduate of the Newark Academy, the precursor of the University.
In a 1934 article, The Colonial Origin of Newark Academy and Other Classical Schools From Which Arose Many Colleges and Universities, George Morgan, an 1875 alumnus of Delaware College, wrote: "McHenry studied medicine; was an aide-de-camp under Washington and Lafayette; was a Maryland delegate to the Continental Congress, 1783-86; and was a member of the Federal Constitutional Convention and signed that instrument. Washington appointed him Secretary of War in 1796 and he continued in that office until 1801…Fort McHenry, so celebrated in song and story, was named in honor of the Newark Academy boy."