 | The topic of this article may not meet Misplaced Pages's general notability guideline. Please help to demonstrate the notability of the topic by citing reliable secondary sources that are independent of the topic and provide significant coverage of it beyond a mere trivial mention. If notability cannot be shown, the article is likely to be merged, redirected, or deleted. Find sources: "Ferdinand Durang" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (August 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
 | This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please help improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (December 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
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.
External links
- York Daily Record, 1814
- 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.
 | This article about an American theatre actor is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it. |