Francis Scott Key wrote "The Star-Spangled Banner" with a flourish in a small, firm, readable hand with the fat, round O's that have launched thousands of Orioles games over the years.

For nearly half a century, Key's manuscript, 32 lines in ink brown with age that fill an ordinary letter page, has been sealed in an airtight bronze case at the Maryland Historical Society.

Since it was bought in 1953, the document has never left the society's museum. It is the most prized -- and beloved -- of all the 3 million or 4 million items in the collection.

On Monday afternoon, the manuscript is set to travel for the first time to Fort McHenry, where the sight of the American flag at dawn after a 25-hour British bombardment inspired the poetry that became the national anthem.

First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton plans to meet there with preservationists as she begins a "Save America's Treasures" tour to encourage public and private efforts to restore national monuments and artifacts. The initiative is a joint effort of the White House Millennium Council and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

"Bringing this manuscript to Fort McHenry for the first time," says Dennis Fiori, the society's director, "is our way of symbolizing the urgent need for document preservation in this country."

Clinton has scheduled her first stop in Baltimore at the Francis Scott Key Monument on Eutaw Place, where at 1 p.m. she'll announce commitments by the millennium committee to save outdoor sculptures in the "monumental city" and the rest of the nation.

She will begin her campaign in Washington early Monday morning, with the president, at the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of American History, where restoration will soon begin on the original flag that moved Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner" during the War of 1812.

After leaving Baltimore, the first lady will visit such sites as Thomas Edison's laboratory in West Orange, N.J., George Washington's headquarters in Newburgh, N.Y., and Harriet Tubman's home in Auburn, N.Y. She'll end her tour Thursday with an address at the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Women's Rights Convention, at Seneca Falls, N.Y.

"The time of Mrs. Clinton's visit is perfect," Fiori says. "It has given us a rare opportunity to work with the National Archives to obtain the best expertise available to conserve the document."

A senior conservator from the National Archives, Elissa O'Loughlin, examined the Key manuscript last night. Her initial judgment is that the condition of the 174-year-old document, soldered into an airtight little vault, is good enough to make the trip.

"This case was built for us about 50 years ago, and filled with helium gas to prevent oxidation of the ink, much like they did with Lenin's body," says David De Lorenzo, director of the society's library.

The company that built the "Banner's" case did the encasing of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution at the National Archives, in Washington. During the coming year while the "Star-Spangled Banner" flag is being refurbished, archives conservators will embark on a similar program to update the preservation of the founding documents of the nation.

"They're going to study the whole issue of how to preserve these properly," De Lorenzo says. "That's what we want to do. We want to pattern ourselves after what the National Archives is doing."

The historical society hopes to get some of the funding, too, for preservation of the "Star-Spangled Banner" manuscript.

"This is an icon of the same historical importance," he says. "Obviously it doesn't rank up there with the Constitution, but they are the words of our national anthem. I think it has that kind of emotional value."

The anthem celebrates the victory that may have saved the United States, and embodies the new sense of American nationality aroused by the War of 1812. Britain's impressing U.S. sailors into its navy, blockading U.S. ports and burning the White House enraged Americans.

After hardscrabble volunteers and militiamen from Baltimore halted crack assault troops at the Battle of North Point and Fort McHenry resisted the intense cannonading from warships of the Royal navy, the English fleet retired down the Chesapeake Bay and the last real British challenge to American independence ended forever.

When the huge 15-star, 15-stripe wool flag appeared out of the mists over Fort McHenry at dawn on Sept. 14, 1814, the jubilant Francis Scott Key scratched notes on the back of a letter for the poem that became the national anthem.

Through the night, he had watched the intense bombardment of the fort by the British invasion force. A Georgetown lawyer, Key was aboard a "cartel boat," a truce ship, off Sparrows Point, negotiating a prisoner release. For most of this century, the spot has been marked by a red, white and blue buoy.

A couple of days later Key wrote out the full song while staying at the Indian Queen Hotel, at Hanover and Baltimore streets, about where the Equitable Safe Deposit and Trust building stands today. That's the manuscript the Maryland Historical Society has.

"The Star-Spangled Banner" was printed in broadsides almost immediately and became an instant hit among proud Baltimoreans, sung to the tune of a drinking song, "To Anacreon in Heaven."

Eventually, Key's handwritten copy was passed down to the granddaughter of Key's brother-in-law, Judge Joseph H. Nicholson. She decided to sell it in 1907, and railroad tycoon and philanthropist Henry Walters, of Walters Gallery fame, bought it.

Supposedly a little girl wrote Walters and said he should buy it so it would stay in Baltimore," says Jennifer Bryan, curator of manuscripts at the society.

In 1953, the Historical Society bought the manuscript from the Walters Gallery for $24,000 and had it soldered into its bronze case. It originally was enshrined in a shadowy marble niche, rather like a holy relic recovered from the heathens.

"The document has never been out of its case since," De Lorenzo says. But it's now displayed in a sleek, restrained, contemporary setting.

It was encased before they knew how to stabilize acid paper and inks. Inks fade and acid papers oxidize to create holes.

"We really don't know if the helium gases are there," De Lorenzo says. Helium, an inert gas, replaces oxygen to prevent deterioration.

"We don't have a way of testing that," he says. That's one of the things the National Archives conservator is doing.

And it's not insured -- the manuscript is "priceless," Dickey says. "No museum insures these things. It would cost too much."

The anthem, double-locked into its outer glass case, is protected by a very sensitive alarm system. A worker once set it off by loudly singing -- what else -- "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Key's song will go to Fort McHenry with a police escort. It'll stay at the fort just about as long as Clinton.

They thought about putting the "Banner" into a Brinks armored truck for the trip, but they figured the ride might be too bouncy.

"Now we're trying to get some kind of air-ride vehicle," De Lorenzo says. "Borrow somebody's Lexus, maybe."

Pub Date: 7/10/98