Ferdinand Durang
 | The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline. (August 2022) |
 | This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. (December 2016) |
Ferdinand Durang (c. 1785 – 1831) was an American actor, best known as the first person to sing publicly Francis Scott Key's "The Star-Spangled Banner".
He was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of John Durang of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, America's first native-born actor. He served in the Pennsylvania militia. It is disputed whether he actually matched Key's poem with the tune of "To Anacreon in Heaven", a popular drinking song, but he is generally recognized as the first person to publicly sing it, at Captain McCauley's tavern in Baltimore in October 1814. He was a member of the Bowery Theatre Company. He died in 1831.[citation needed]
External links
[edit]- York Daily Record, 1814 Archived 2015-04-02 at the Wayback Machine
- Genealogy of the Durang family
- Downer, Alan S., ed.; The Memoir of John Durang. Historical Society of York County/American Society for Theatre Research by University of Pittsburgh Press. 1966.[permanent dead link]
 | This article about an American theatre actor is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by adding missing information. |