Timeline of Baltimore

The following is a timeline of the history of the city of

Baltimore, Maryland, United States

of land along southern shore of Patapsco River of

previous Ann Arundell [antique spelling]), along
with future additional Howard, Carroll, and Kent
Counties (south to Chester River). Oceholder
of Sheri for Baltimore County rst designated in
legal papers from the General Assembly.

This is an incomplete list that may never

be able to satisfy particular standards for
completeness. You can help by expanding it
with reliably sourced entries.

1661 First court sits for Baltimore County, meeting at Capt. Thomas Howells place in what is now
modern Cecil County.
Charles Gorsuch, a Quaker patents 50 acres
of land on narrow jagged peninsula which juts
out into the Patapsco River, between what is
(later by the 18th century) called the Northwest Branch to the north and the Middle
and Ferry Branches to the south and southwest, ending in Whetstone Point (including future old South Baltimore areas with
Federal Hill, Locust Point, Riverside neighborhoods, Spring Gardens, Ferry Bar and Fort
McHenry). He promises to pay Lord Baltimore, Cecilius Calvert, 61 pounds sterling per
year for the use of the land.

17th century
1608 Captain John Smith sails up Chesapeake Bay
and records rst description of area that would become future site of Baltimore, then a hunting ground
for local American Indians. Smith sails up and
records in his map and journal a river not inhabited yet navigable, which he names the Bolus Flu
Indian who hunt in the region call it the Patapsco.
1632 Charter to Colony granted by King Charles
I of England to George Calvert (15791632), First
Lord Baltimore.

David Jones hires Peter Carroll to survey 380

acres along the stream which is later named
"Jones Falls" in his honor. He built a house
and is said to be future Baltimores rst settler.

1634 The Ark and The Dove, ships of the second Lord Baltimore Cecilius Calvert's (16051675)
colonizing expedition, lands March 25th (later celebrated as Maryland Day ocial state holiday) at Blakistone Island (later St. Clements), later
at St. Marys City, where they establish a capital in future St. Marys County bringing rst European and African settlers to the future colony of
the Province of Maryland, with his brother Leonard
Calvert (16061647), sent as rst Governor.

1663 Alexander Mountenay patented land named

Mountenays Neck along the Harford Run stream,
(where Central Avenue is now paved over in old
East Baltimores Jonestown, later known Old Town
neighborhoods such as Little Italy are located) and
which is later sold and resurveyed to William Fell.
Land is also patented along Curtis Bay and
Curtis Creek southwest o the lower Patapsco
River estuary in future adjoining northern
Anne Arundel County and southern Baltimore
City, (after 1919 Annexation) to Paul Kinsey naming it Curtiss Neck and followed in
1679, by his friend George Yates nearby with
a grant called Denchworth, although there
is no person of a family of the name Curtis
appearing in the Provinces early land records
(which is also applied to the previously named
Broad Creek).

1650 Ann Arundell County erected

(founded/established) further north along western
shore of Chesapeake Bay of older original English
settlements in southern Maryland near St. Marys
City along the Potomac River. Named for Ann
Arundell (16151649). Eventually this county will
border southern Baltimore City and County along
Patapsco River's southern shore.
1659

Baltimore
County
erected
(founded/established) in the northeast section
of Province, north of new Ann Arundell County.
Includes what is now Baltimore City, Baltimore
County, Harford and Cecil Counties (and northern
portions just south a few miles from high points

1664 Capt. Thomas Todd purchases land at North

Point, end of the Patapsco Neck peninsula (in
southeastern Baltimore County), between the Back
1

2 18TH CENTURY
River and the Patapsco, followed by John Boring,
merchant in 1679.
1668 Thomas Cole takes up 550 acres of property named Coles Harbor in future site of northern Baltimore Town (from Harford Run on the
east to future Howard Street on the west and to
Madison Street in the north) and combines with
Todds Range along the Basins (later Inner Harbor) waterfront, when later sold to James Todd
with later owners being Daniel Carroll ["I the
rst"], (16961751), and Charles Carroll of Annapolis (17021782) who assembled and bought almost 1,000 acres in 1696.
Timber Neck parcel stretching along future
Howard, Paca and Eutaw Streets, patented by
John Howard, ancestor to later famous scion
and Revolutionary War military ocer, John
Eager Howard (17521827).
1673/74 Cecil County formed from northeastern
portion of Baltimore County and temporarily includes future Kent County on upper Eastern Shore.
1683 First mention in records for Baltimore
County of a county seat with a port of entry designated by the Maryland General Assembly on the
Bush River, later called Old Baltimore (in future
Harford County).
1692 Patapsco Hundred Parish of the established (ocial) Church of England in the colonial Province of Maryland established for Baltimore
County near Colgate Creek (near modern site of the
Dundalk and Sea Girt Marine Terminals of the Port
of Baltimore), on the Patapsco Neck peninsula
of southeastern Baltimore County along the north
shore of the lower Patapsco River. Later Parish
is named as St. Pauls Church or Parish (of the
Anglican Church) with small log building erected.
One of the authorized Original Thirty parishes
designated in the Province. Later parish church
moves in 1730 to newly founded Baltimore Town
on the headwaters of The Basin of the Patapsco
River's Northwest Branch. After several previous
sites purchased and later discarded in the Town,
nal location is chosen at present Lot #19 of the
1730 Original Survey bounded by Forest Street
(future North Charles Street), New Church Lane
(later East Lexington Street), future East Saratoga
Street, and future St. Pauls Lane (modern St. Paul
Street/Place/Preston Gardens). Lot perched on edge
of jagged cli to east overlooking old southwestward loop of Jones Falls where rst brick church
building in town (of later three successor structures)
is completed in 1739, with surrounding cemetery.
Oldest church and congregation in greater Baltimore
area and one of the oldest in state.

2 18th century
2.1 1700s1740s
1704 Provincial law requires that enough trees be
cut down to widen the main roads to twenty feet and
that roads be marked. Marking system consists of
cutting slashes in tree trunks: one vertical slash on a
road leading to a church and three horizontal lines,
two close together and one a bit higher on roads leading to a county courthouse.
1706 Port of Baltimore established as an authorized for shipping of tobacco and other products by
colonial General Assembly of the Province of Maryland for the upper Chesapeake Bay region at the
head of the Patapsco River's Northwest Branch, in
The Basin (now called "Inner Harbor"), west of
inlet and small island at the mouth of the "Jones
Falls" stream and Harford Run (later covered by
Central Avenue in the 19th century) further to the
east, both of which ow from the north, and a small
stream owing from the west, later called Uhlers
Run. Situated below the jagged cli heights (later
known after 1788 as "Federal Hill") to the south
which overlook the protected harbor which has a
twelve-foot depth, enough for ocean-going sailing
ships, along a narrow peninsula (old South Baltimore) leading to Whetstone Point. Although only a
few ships make anchor the rst years by Whetstone
Point, it never grows into a town as did deeper anchorages further upstream at future Fells Point and
Baltimore Town.
1711 Charles Carroll of Annapolis, (XXXXXXX), sells 31 acres to Jonathan Hanson who
erects a mill, probably the rst along the Jones Falls
in the vicinity of the intersection with later-day Holliday Street.
1715 General Assembly of Maryland authorizes
convening of a Court to serve the growing numbers of residents farmers, merchants, mechanics,
shipbuilders in northeastern Maryland which is now
called "Baltimore County", since 1659 and sets four
sessions per year for the Court on the rst Tuesday
of March, June, August and November.
1723 Capt. Robert North takes up residence in
the County and is one of the original lot owners. He
commands the ship Content " which he carries in
freight this year.
1726 Richard Gist lays out future port community
for Edward Fell originally called Fells Prospect
and surveys three dwellings, several tobacco houses,
an orchard and a mill Jonathan Hansons. Fell
builds a store, and the area eventually came to be
called "Fells Point". Edward Fells brother William,
a carpenter arrives from Lancashire, England in

2.1

1700s1740s
1730 and purchases 100 acres named Copus Harbor at Long Island Point (vicinity of modern Lancaster Street, near Philpot Street east of Jones
Falls mouth todays "Harbor East and new developments at Harbor Point in 2013) and builds
house and shipyard.

1728 John Cockey (whose brother Thomas purchased property in Limestone Valley on the York
Road up in central Baltimore County giving his
name to the future Cockeysville) purchases land
near the Patapsco.
1729 County citizens petition the Colonial Assembly to establish a Town for the ease of exporting tobacco and importing goods from overseas and further expanding the 1706 Port and Harbor. Original site planned and designated was on
north shore of the Patapscos Middle Branch (also
known as Ridgeleys Cove) owned by John Moale,
a merchant from Devonshire, England who later objected to the site of the new Town, believing that
valuable iron ore deposits were located there. So
the rst commissioners appointed (Gentlemen
of Consequence": Thomas Tolley, William Hamilton, William Buckner, Dr. George Walker, Richard
Gist, Dr. George Buchanan, and William Hammond) instead purchased to the northeast, 60 acres
of land of Charles Carroll's Coles Harbor/Todds
Range along the north side of the future Basin
(Inner Harbor) at the head of the Northwest Branch
of the Patapsco River from Daniel (16961751),
and Charles Carroll of Annapolis (17021782) and
county surveyor Philip Jones plans to lay out three
streets: Calvert, Forest (later called Charles) which
ran north to south, and the east-west Long or later
called Market (after the 1760s and still later further
as East and West Baltimore) Street. The Town of
Cecilius Calvert, Lord Baltimore" was then founded
with the sole resident of the area at the time: John
Fleming (whose house stood near southeast corner
of Forest (future South Charles) and King George
(later East Lombard) Streets).
1730 The Original Survey taken on January
12, and 60 one-acre lots were laid out by County
Surveyor Philip Jones beginning at an oak tree located then at present site of Forest (South Charles)
and future Camden Streets. Three streets laid
out and conrmed: Calvert, Forest (Charles), and
Long (later Market, then Baltimore Street), with
smaller streets/alleys: Hanover, German and Water Streets with Great Eastern Road running along
the northwest edge connecting Philadelphia to the
northeast, with Georgetown, Maryland to the southwest and Annapolis to the south (Provincial capital since 1694). Southwestern village boundary
along Uhlers Run stream later Uhlers Alley,
southwest of Forest and King George Streets (later

3
South Charles and West Lombard Sts.). Waterfront shoreline with rst wharves located along waterfront of the Basin (later Inner Harbor) at German and Water Streets (at approximate site of modern Redwood/Water Streets three blocks further
north of modern (2013) shoreline/"Harborplace).
Steigers Meadow (northeast of town) and Harrisons Marsh (east of town) were along the west
bank of the Jones Falls stream to the east of new
Town. Charles Carroll, as owner of the property has
rst choice and chooses Lot #49 at Calvert Street and
the Basin, Philip Jones, the surveyor picks Lot #37
on the Basin at the foot of Charles Street. Sixteen
men take up lots that rst day, many along the waterfront. Process continues over the next few years
with some later forfeiting their claim for not building within eighteen months. Ten years later some
lots are still held by the town commissioners so
not exactly a boom town right o.
St. Pauls Anglican Parish, of the established
(colony-supported) Church of England, established earlier in 1692 as one of Original Thirty parishes in the colonial Province
of Maryland, is moved from a rough church
structure originally near Colgate Creek on
the Patapsco Neck peninsula (near modern
Dundalk and Sea Girt Marine Terminals of
the Port of Baltimore, previously site of old
Harbor Field and Baltimore Municipal Airport in the 1930s and 40s), between the lower
Patapsco and Back Rivers to the southeast of
Baltimore County. Later a year after establishment of the new town, the Vestry (congregation council) of St. Pauls Parish purchases
Lot #19 at southeast of Forest Street (later
North Charles Street) and large lot extends to
the east to St. Pauls Lane (later St. Paul
Street/Place/"Preston Gardens) overlooking
rugged clis above Jones Falls loop to the
southwest before turning north again, with
south lot boundary line extending to New
Church Lane (later East Lexington Street
renamed after American Revolution later
vicinity known as North Charles and East
Saratoga Streets). Construction of church as
rst brick building in town begins the following year.
1731 Baltimore Ironworks Company formed by
Daniel Dulany the Elder, Benjamin Tasker, Sr., and
members of the Carroll family: Dr. Charles Carroll,
Charles Carroll, Esq., and Daniel Carroll who establish iron ore pits, furnace works and export through
Baltimore and Fells Point.
1732 "Joness Town", a tract of ten acres of 20 lots
along four streets (also later called Old Town by
the 19th century) laid out by county surveyor Philip

2 18TH CENTURY
Jones for relative David Jones; established along
northeast bank of Jones Falls which ows into the
Patapscos Northwest Branch, east of The Basin.
1739 First brick building completed in town built
for church for Old St. Pauls Anglican Parish at
Forest (Charles) Street and Fish Lane (later East
Saratoga Street) on northern edge of town perched
on clis to the east overlooking St. Pauls Lane (now
Street/Place) and the Jones Falls loop using 600,000
bricks newly manufactured in Baltimore by Charles
Wells. Building faces future Lexington Street side
to the south and Lower Town. Cemetery laid out
around church building. New Church Street laid out
south of new church building (later renamed Lexington Street after American Revolution).

Baltimore Street), one at the upper part of Bridge

Street over the Jones Falls (Gay Street) and a third
smaller portal near the north end of Charles Street
near old St. Pauls Anglican Church for foot passengers, completed 1750. Unfortunately, the next
few winters are severe and scavengers strip pieces
for winter rewood and by 1752, fence remnants are
sold o.
1747 Towns rst attempt to deal with the imsy
wooden structures of the era and constant threat of
conagration was to have housekeepers to be subject
to a ten shilling ne if they do not keep a ladder high
enough to extend to the top of the roof of such house
or if their chimneys blaze out.

was another order of the town commissioners and that if

1740 Methodist iternerant preacher and mission- a re does break out, for all to grab a bucket and come
ary George Whiteeld (17141770), preaches here running. At. night, two men lead the way, one carrying a
inspired by evangelical "First Great Awakening" re- torch and the other blowing a fog horn.
ligious revival meetings and Church of England
ministers John Wesley (17031791), and Charles

Seven ships have called at the Port of BaltiWesley (17071788).

more this year with fteen arriving the following year, all bound for London.
1741 First brick house built in town for Edward Fortrell from Ireland with free-stone corners, two stories high with peaked roof at north- 2.2 1750s1790s
west corner of Calvert Street and Fish Lane (later
East Fayette Street). Later site of large sumptu 1750 First German Reformed Church organized.
ous James Buchanan mansion/townhouse of 1799
Second oldest Protestant congregation in town. Inlater sold to noted U.S. Senator Reverdy Johnson,
vites Rev. John Christian Faber to become their
(1796-1876), and ransacked in 1835 during infapastor in 1756 and begin building a structure just
mous Baltimore bank riot, also future site of southnorth of Old St. Pauls Anglican Church (Church
east corner of 18941900 Baltimore City/Clarence
of England) on Forest (North Charles) Street, with
M. Mitchell, Jr. Courthouse, opposite future
some Evangelical Lutherans worshipping with them.
Courthouse/Battle Monument Square.
Congregation later moves to Front Street at East Baltimore Street by Jones Falls west bank, but structure
1745 Merger of Joness Town (later also known
damaged by ood before completion help to nish
as Old Town) and Baltimore Town authorized
building given by ministers of other local churches
on September 28th by General Assembly of Mary Anglican, Presbyterian and Lutheran. Later buildland enlarges the original settlement on the Patapsco
ing surmounted by tall steeple and prominent town
River with an important wooden bridge constructed
clock. First German Reformed congregation later
at Bridge Street (later Gay Street) connecting the
relocates in 1928 to York Road in Rodgers Forge (in
two, crossing the Jones Falls stream with Harrinorthern suburbs) and merges with daughter church
sons Marsh (on land of Thomas Harrison) to the
St. Stephens).
south and Steigers Meadow to the northwest by
the Loop of the Jones Falls owing from the north
1751 Subscription and lottery attempt fails to
to southwest, then northeast, then continuing further
build public market house for Baltimore Town.
south to the Patapsco Rivers Basin at the head of
But successful twelve years later by 1763 at northits Northwest Branch, separating the two villages.
west corner of Long Street (later Market, then
The merged villages are now to be called Baltimore
Baltimore Street) and Bridge Street (later Gay
Town.
Street). Replaced by later Centre (Marsh) Market in 1782 at Market (East Baltimore) Street and
1746 Town Commissioners hire Capt. Robert
Market Place/Harrison Street by west bank of Jones
North to build fence around former Joness Town
Falls, and supplemented by other markets in western
area and then follow two years later with a subscripprecincts (Lexington Market) and eastern precincts
tion by townspeople to build post and fence around
(Broadway Market in Fells Point) by 1784.
Baltimore Town and keep in repair, prohibiting rais Further sanitary regulations promulgated by
ing hogs and geese, with three gates one at west end
the town commissioners: Whereas several
of Long Street (later known as Market Street, then

2.2

1750s1790s

persons permit stinking sh, dead creatures or

carrion to lie on their Lotts or in the Streets
near their doors which are very oensive Nuisances and contrary to Act of Assembly, the
Commissioners therefore Order the Clerk to
put up advertisements to inform such Persons
that they are to remove them ...

brother of Charles Carroll (barrister) (17231783),

and cousin of Charles Carroll of Carrollton (1737
1832), who is most famous as an American patriot
as later delegate to Second Continental Congress,
last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, and honorary layer of First Stone for the
new Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1828.

1752 First Census taken of Baltimore Town lists

30 names of settlers, rst census of surrounding Baltimore County enumerates free whites 11,345,
white servants and convicts 1,501, black and mulatto slaves 4,143, free blacks and mulattos 204.

1755 After occasionally worshipping with Reformed Protestant Germans in Baltimore Town,
Lutherans from Germany establish separate
Evangelical Lutheran congregation and begin
meeting in various homes of members. Later
moves in 1758/1762? to Bridge Street (later
known as North Gay Street) west of Jones Falls,
near future East Saratoga Street with small brick
church constructed with bell tower. Later moves
one block south on Bridge Street down to corner
with New Church Street (later after Revolution
known as East Lexington Street) and becomes
known as Zion Church of the City of Baltimore
or also as Old Zion Lutheran Church. After re
damage, building rebuilt without front bell tower
in Georgian/Federal style in 180708, designed
and built by parish members George Rohrback and
Johann Mekenheimer.

First historic illustration drawing of the new

Town by John Moale (son of man who objected to original town site on Middle Branch),
showing approximately 25 houses four of
brick, one brick church, two taverns (Paynes
and Kaminskys on corner of future Grant
and Mercer Streets alleys in the block bounded
by modern German/Redwood, Light, Water
and South Calvert Streets endures as wooden
frame structure with Dutch hipped roof, tavern later raised higher on stone foundation
which becomes ground/rst oor until photographed and razed in 1870), one brewery
(Barnetz Brothers), one tobacco inspection
warehouse, one wharf, a barber shop and an
insurance oce. The country-like view, with
its few buildings and rolling hills and forests
of topography was taken looking north from
the overlook on rugged cliside heights (later
named Federal Hill after 1788), to the south of
The Basin (later called the "Inner Harbor").
School rst organized by Mr. James Gardner at South and Second (later Water) Streets
along harbor shoreline.
1753 Inuential citizens John Stevenson, Richard
Chase, John Moale, William and Nicholas Rogers,
John Ridgely, Nicholas Ruxton Gay, William Lux
and Brian Philpot manage lottery to raise money for
building additional public wharf.
1754 Mount Clare Mansion begins construction
on Georgia Plantation estate, north of Gwynns
Falls stream, Middle Branch (Ridgeleys Cove)
of Patapsco River and southwest of growing town
along the Georgetown Road (later called Columbia
Road, then as Washington Boulevard, also future
U.S. Route 1 running from Maine to Florida by
the 1920s). Near future city neighborhood of
Pigtown (and Washington Village), restored and
gentried community of Ridgelys Delight and
in future Carroll Park which is purchased by City
along with house and restored as historic site in
XXXX. Mansion construction of Georgian architectural style built to about 1760 by John Henry Carroll,

German Reformed congregation invites Rev. John

Christian Faber to become pastor and begin building
structure just north of rst church in town Old St.
Pauls Anglican Church on Forest (Charles) Street,
some Evangelical Lutherans participate in worship
with Reformed friends.
1757 Smallpox epidemic in colonial capital city
of Annapolis to the south, drives General Assembly
legislature to meet for sessions in Baltimore.
1759 Arrival of French Canadian refugees beginning around 1755, expelled by British ocials from
Acadia (Nova Scotia province in New France (in future Canada) after their victory at the Battle of the
Plains of Abraham near Quebec City in the French
and Indian War/Seven Years War (in Europe). The
new immigrants who settle around South Forest
and west of King Georges (Lombard) Streets, near
old Uhlers Run (stream), southwest of the Town
and west of the The Basin harbor (Inner Harbor), which becomes known in the late 18th Century and early 19th Century as Frenchtown. Additional inux of pioneer frontier colonial settlers
from Appalachian Mountains of western Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia driven or forced back
east by Indians and French military.
1761 After occasionally joining German
Lutherans and Reformed (Protestants) in services
established earlier, Presbyterians (Scottish) and
Reformed English Protestants (many Scots-Irish
from Great Britain and Ireland) began worshipping

2 18TH CENTURY
in local houses around The Basin harbor and
constructed a log church two years later for their
congregation at East Lane (later East Fayette)
and Bridge (later North Gay) Streets, which was
followed in 1765, by a more substantial brick
church several blocks west at the northwest corner
of East Fayette and North (later renamed Guilford
Avenue) Streets. First minister called for this First
Presbyterian Church of Baltimore is the Rev. Dr.
Patrick Allison (17401802), a most inuential
man, both in his church and denomination and
in the educational, cultural and civic aairs of
the town for forty years. Rev. Allison is also
instrumental in organizing the regional Presbytery
of Baltimore, later in 1786, and a larger national
General Assembly of Presbyterians, along with
participating in joint endeavors with the later
Roman Catholic bishop and Anglican priest, with
forming several schools, attempting establishment
of a college, various lectures and literary societies
and the organization of a subscription/membership
community library for the educated elite.
1763 Fells Point established further east along the
Northwest Branch of the Patapsco River, west of
small peninsula near the inlet formed by Harford
Run, a stream channeled between two parallel lanes
of old Canal Street, and later under modern, pavedover Central Avenue as it reaches the main Patapsco
Rivers Northwest Branch. The new waterfront port
town, east of Baltimore Town and quickly becomes
a major shipbuilding area with its deeper channel
and pier berths, extending along eastern northern
shore of Patapsco to conuence with Harris Creek
(now under the modern-day industrial and residential community of Canton), site of later 18th Century shipbuilding yards including David Stoddarts
where the U.S.F. Constellation is built, rst ship of
the Original Six Frigates of the newly re-organized
U.S. Navy in 1797.
The Mechanical Company organized as rst
volunteer re ghting company in town. Six
years later, a new revolutionary invention, a
hand re engine is discovered on board a
Dutch ship anchored in the harbor, which the
Company buys for 99 pounds sterling (=$264)
and named it The Dutchman, enabling Baltimoreans to boast that they had a re engine
ten years before Boston and thirty years before Paris. Mechanical Company of volunteer remen, later forms a local militia unit
and develops into a social and political club
which endures 250 years later. The Mechanical Fire Company is followed for the next several decades by several other re-ghting companies to approximately 17 by unication in
1858.[1]
First public market house for the town of

two stories height erected with 3,000 English

pounds raised by lottery. Town Commissioners William Lyon, Nicholas Gay, John Moale,
and Archibald Buchanan lease land on July
16 from Thomas Harrison at eight pounds per
year at northwest corner of Long Street, (soon
to be renamed Market Street later renamed
again as East Baltimore Street) at intersection
with Bridge (later North Gay) Street on the
eastern edge of Harrisons Marsh by the western bank of the Jones Falls, (later known as
the "Centre Market" or occasionally as Marsh
Market named for the nearby swamp to
the south and west along the west bank of
the Falls owned by Harrison). Market built
with second oor for entertainment, cultural
and educational events and indoor mass public assemblies. Lottery stages to build market house, buy two re engines and a parcel of leather buckets and enlarge the public
wharf. The scheme is to sell 3,000 tickets at
20 shillings each, with winners of 1,062 tickets to draw prizes amounting to 2,480 pounds,
leaving a net gain for the public improvements
of 510 pounds. Near-by Harrison Street, later
to the south as Market Place and its central horse fountain were later sites of subsequent market houses in 1851 and 1907 lasting
to 1984. Centre Market House is also the location on the second and third oors of the 1851
landmark structure for the Maryland Institute
for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts until the "Great Baltimore Fire" of 1904, then
M.I.'s College of Art and Design rebuilt 1907
on top oors in the northern market building of three parallel structures until the early
1980s when razed for Baltimore Metro subway Shot Tower/Market Place station. Currently the Port Discovery childrens museum
in the old Fish Market, middle market building of three reconstructed.
1765 British Parliaments "Stamp Act" led to
protests against rst direct tax levied on the American colonies by Great Britain and provoked mass
assemblies and growing unrest throughout the
Thirteen Colonies and at Baltimore County Courthouse in Square on Calvert Street, between New
Church Street (East Lexington) and Fish Lane (later
East Fayette Street).
1767 Baltimore Town designated as the county
seat is moved from Old Joppa with new courthouse
built in a square the following year (1768) at north
end of North Calvert Street and between Fish Lane
(later East Fayette) and New Church Street (East
Lexington) on towns northern border near cli
overlooking southwestward loop of Jones Falls at a
cost of 900 pounds raised by townsfolk with whip-

2.2

1750s1790s
ping post, pillory and stocks constructed in square
and new jail further out. Controversy and political battles throughout County with Joppa residents
result.[2]

1769 Evangelical Lutherans at Old Zion Lutheran

Church at North Gay and East Lexington Streets,
begin German language instruction in school.
1770 Large substantial Henry Fite House built of
brick with three and half stories at southwest corner of South Sharp (to the north was future North
Liberty Street after the Revolution) and Market
(later West Baltimore) Streets on western edge of
Town. Later used tavern and hotel by German immigrant son Jacob Fite, and daughter Elizabeth Fite
Rehnienke. Used as temporary National Capitol as
Second Continental Congress meets there December 1776 to February 1777, after Philadelphia is
occupied by the British, known then as Congress
Hall (or later as Old Congress Hall endures until Great Baltimore Fire of 1904).
Roman Catholics bolstered by inux of French
Acadians from Nova Scotia and some Irishmen previously celebrate Mass by the Rev.
John Ashton at converted chapel in room of
old Edward Fortrells rst brick home (who
had returned to Ireland) at Calvert Street and
Fish Lane (later East Fayette Street). Lot
purchased on northwest corner from Charles
Carroll of North Charles and West Saratoga
Streets for St. Peters Congregation, with redbrick building completed nally in 1783 with
adjoining rectory and small cemetery across
street from Old St. Pauls Anglican Church
1771 Organization of German Reformed congregation (later known as Otterbein Church at South
Sharp and West Conway Streets) by Rev. Dr. Philip
Otterbein (17261813).
1773 The Maryland Journal, and the Baltimore
Advertiser, rst newspaper in town begins publication August 20, at Market Street (later East Baltimore Street) near South Lane under William Goddard and sister Mary Katherine Goddard who also
serves as Postmaster (mistress) of Baltimore. This
is the oldest ancestor of later merged newspapers
which became the Baltimore News-American in
1964, closed in 1986 by the Hearst Company).[3]

7
for Baltimore County and Towns poor, indigent and disabled on land purchased from
William Lux for 350 pounds northwest of
town in square bounded by Howard, Eutaw,
Biddle and Garden Streets with trustees appointed: Charles Ridgely, William Lux, John
Moale, William Smith, Samuel Purviance of
the Town, and Andrew Buchanan and Harry
Dorsey Gough from the County. Becomes
the ancestor of the later Bayview Asylum,
later Baltimore City Hospitals and the modern Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center
on Eastern Avenue, east of the city.
General Assembly of Maryland also authorizes the taking up of a public subscription or
later a public lottery to establish a common
public market house to be located and built in
Baltimore Town, the county seat of Baltimore
County for commerce and trading.
Baptist members in town erect rst permanent meeting house with a dwelling for pastor, school house and establish cemetery at
North Front and East Fayette Streets alongside east bank of Jones Falls (future site of
Phoenix Shot Tower constructed later in 1828
o President Street Boulevard). This congregation of First Baptist Church of Baltimore
Town later moves to 4200 Liberty Heights Avenue in Dorchester-Gwynn Oak-Forest Park
area, of northwest Baltimore.
Jewish settlers arrive as permanent residents
with Benjamin Levy, shopkeeper with wife
Rachel, and son Robert Morris Levy named
for good friend, wealthiest American and future Revolutionary War government nancier.
Estimated population of town is 6,000 compared with Philadelphia 40,000 and New
York 25,000.
1774 Baltimore and Maryland send representatives to First Continental Congress meeting in
Philadelphia and Annapolis Convention (1774
1776)
Demonstrations, mass meetings at the County
Courthouse Square on Calvert Street (future
site of Battle Monument for War of 1812 victory, 181522) and anti-tax and anti-British
speeches along with organization of a local Committee of Correspondence to forment
colonists rights.

Baltimore Town (which had already absorbed

nearby village across Jones Falls, of Jones
Town a few years earlier) now merges with
Fells Point of 80 acres to form combined town
government and council.

1775 Maryland revolutionary leaders began to

govern colony through Provincial Convention
which sends delegates to the Second Continental
Congress also in Philadelphia.

General Assembly of Maryland establishes

rst Alms House and adjoining Work House

Baltimore Town listed as having 564 houses,

5,934 inhabitants.

2 18TH CENTURY
Warships constructed on waterfront of Baltimore Town and Fells Point completed
in November for Continental Navy and
new commodore Esek Hopkins (1718-1802),
squadron, Wasp and Hornet, with captains
mate (second-in-command) young, Joshua
Barney (1759-1818), of Maryland, a later U.S.
Navy hero and legend, who hoists the "Grand
Union Flag" aboard as naval symbol for the
new United Colonies of America.
1776 Maryland sends last Royal Governor Sir
Robert Eden under Lord Baltimores proprietary
government of Henry Harford, (illegitimate son of
Frederick Calvert, 6th and last Lord Baltimore)
packing to England from Annapolis.
Publishing of text on July 10 in local Baltimore newspaper of new Declaration of Independence, adopted by Second Continental
Congress in Philadelphia the week before, July
4.
Reading aloud by a speaker or town crier
in public at the Courthouse Square at the
northern edge of the Town on North Calvert
Street, between New Church Street (now East
Lexington) and Fish Lane (now East Fayette
Street), (also in the next century to become
Battle Monument Square) on July 23, of the
words of the ocial "Declaration of Independence", passed two weeks before in Philadelphia at Independence Hall (then known as the
Old Pennsylvania State House), on July 2
and 4. Baltimorean Charles Carroll of Carrollton is delegate and later becomes last surviving signer. Later celebrated as Independence
Day.
Declaration and Charter of Rights and form
of government for the state of Maryland title of new constitution for independent State
drawn up by convention in Annapolis and
adopted November 3, 1776.
In December Second Continental Congress
begins meeting in tavern/hotel; formerly
Henry Fite House later named Congress
Hall at southwest corner of Liberty
Street/South Sharp Street (later Hopkins
Place) and West Baltimore Street (then Market Street) (later site in 1962 of Baltimore
Civic Center/First Mariner Arena) after
Continental Army's evacuation from new capital at Philadelphia upon British occupation
after battles in Pennsylvania at Brandywine
and Germantown. British eet from New
York feints going past at Baltimore and sails
up Chesapeake Bay going northeast to land
at Head of Elk in Cecil County. Baltimore
Town serves as temporary American capital

until February 1777. Old Congress Hall

later becomes residence and oce for New
England merchant and nancier, George
Peabody,(17951869), after he arrives in
city in 1816 to spend twenty years here,
going on to New York City and London, to
become one of the richest men in the world
at that time, endowing several Baltimore and
Massachusetts institutions with his fortune.
Fite House"/"Congress Hall lasts until
destroyed in Great Baltimore Fire of 1904.
1780 Meeting of Anglican clergy and lay representatives in Chestertown, Maryland on the Eastern
Shore to establish a Diocese of Maryland composed
of clergy and parishes of the Church of England
in the newly free and independent State. Later establishment nine years later of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America in
1789, independent from the Mother Church. Later
Episcopalians remains part of a growing Anglican
Communion as the British Empire continued to
spread world-wide in the 19th and 20th Centuries.
Later American revision of the traditional Book of
Common Prayer for church services, worship and
liturgies.
1781 Several American Continental Army and
French regiments under the command of the
Marquis de Lafayette (A French nobleman and ofcer who volunteers his services to General George
Washington) passes through the town in April heading south to Virginia to reinforce the Southern forces
under Gen. Nathaniel Greene facing British Army
Gen. Lord Cornwallis coming up from the Carolinas. A banquet and a dancing ball is held in honor
of the youngn general and his ocers and a request
is made of the ladies of Baltimore to sew and repair additional uniforms, clothing and supplies for
the American troops. In the next few days the former ballroom is transformed into a clothing factory
and the outtting of the soldiers is commenced by
the daughters and wives of the city, supervised by
Mrs. David Poe, mother of future poet and literary gure Edgar Allan Poe. The youthful Marquis sends a letter of thanks and additionally stops
in November on his way back north after the successful surrender of the Redcoats at the Siege and
Battle of Yorktown. Later additional allied armies
aid the Patriot cause with Royal French troops under
Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, the Comte de
Rochambeau, with additional allied German regiments to the French king, Louis XVI and Gen.
George Washington's Continental Army make three
camps for several weeks in September surrounding
the town on their quick march south from north outside New York City and Newport, Rhode Island, to
lay siege to Gen. Lord Cornwallis's British Army
at Yorktown, Virginia the next month, leading to

2.2

1750s1790s
his surrender. Three camps of the thousands of Patriot and allied soldiers surround the town, one located southwest of The Basin (Inner Harbor area)
at the future Camden Yards sports stadiums site,
two north in Howards Woods of Maryland Line
Continental troops commander Col. John Eager
Howard's estate Belvidere, and three east along
the stream Harford Run (now paved over by Central
Avenue) near Jonestown (later also known as Old
Town). Troops returned north early the following
year, after the successful conclusion and surrender
of Cornwallis in October.

1782 Supplementing the rst Centre Market

on Harrison Street/Market Place at East Baltimore
Street west of Jones Falls, a Western Precincts
Market (later known as "Lexington Market") becomes active, along with former Hanover Market
(at Hanover and Camden Streets) in old Frenchtown (now South Baltimore) in 1784, and the Fells
Point Market in 1785, also known then as Eastern
Precincts Market later becomes Broadway Market in Fells Point, sited at the foot of Broadway along
waterfront. Originally an outdoor or tented marketplace during the 18th century. By 1803, group of
wood sheds and outside stalls along West Lexington
Street are constructed, from North Eutaw to Paca
Streets, then further west from North Paca Street to
North Greene Street. Later 19th century extensions
with a sh market go further west to Pearl Street
and with tents and open stalls along Lexington Street
to the east to North Liberty/Sharp Streets, through
the later retail/department store shopping district.
Second, third and fourth of a series of city markets erected in various quarters of the city, growing
to eleven by the early 1900s. Composed of twostory brick assembly halls (often elaborately built
with clock towers or steeples) on second oor with
market spaces beneath and wooden sheds, stalls and
tents at the rear and sides which are open on alternating Market Days Disastrous 1949 re destroys center wooden section of Market between
Paca and Greene Streets which are temporarily replaced by Quonset hut and two new square larger
Market structures with a parking garage attached
dedicated in 1952. In 1974, section of West Lexington Street, east of The Market between North Eutaw Street to North Liberty/Sharp Street-Hopkins
Place barred from vehicular trac and converted
to pedestrian-only Lexington Mall until the early
2010s.
1783
Confederation Congress meeting temporarily
at the Maryland State House in Annapolis
raties the Treaty of Paris ending the
Revolutionary War as Great Britain recognizes American independence. General

9
George Washington passes through city with
military escort and parade, ceremonies, and
banquets at the old Fountain Inn (famous
hotel at St. Paul-Light Street, between Market
(later East Baltimore) Street and German
(later Redwood) Street). After his overnight
stop, the commander-in-chiefs procession
moves on south to surrender his commission
of authority and command of the Continental
Army back to the Congress in session. Ceremony held in the Old Senate Chamber
of the State House, the temporary National
Capitol, and returns home next day to "Mount
Vernon", on the Potomac River, southeast of
Alexandria, Virginia.
Committee of Health, set up in later part of the
year, under appointment by Baltimore Town
commissioners. With its continuous operation ever since, descending into a modern
Baltimore City Department of Health, makes
it the oldest permanent municipal body in
America (and possibly the World), devoted to
public health
1784 Christmas Conference (Methodism) meets
at Lovely Lane Chapel/Meeting House (site now located in small alley), north o German Street (later
East Redwood), east of South Calvert Street, to organize future Methodist Episcopal Church in America; later merged [1968] into The United Methodist
Church and ordination of rst minister and bishop
Francis Asbury (17451816). Congregation later
renamed Light Street Methodist Episcopal Church
when moved two blocks west to nearby new location (on Light Street by Wine Alley and German/Redwood Street), then later known as First
Methodist Episcopal Church. Moved again further north to St. Paul and 23rd Streets in Peabody
Heights/Charles Village in 1884, (as Centennial
monument to Methodism in America) in elaborate
gray stone Romanesque Revival styled building with
tall landmark tower designed by famous New York
architect Stanford White where congregation later
resumed use of name of Lovely Lane Church in the
later 20th century and established historic Methodist
Museum.
Calvert Street extended further north beyond limits of town to Howards Woods
and Belvedere estate of Col. John Eager
Howard (17521827), commander of famous
"Maryland Line" regiment of Continental
Army troops in Revolutionary War. First
Baltimore Town and County Court House
raised 20 feet high on stone arches by contractor Leonard Harbaugh to save building and
permit passage of street to the north beneath
through Courthouse Square (known as Courthouse on Stilts).

10

2 18TH CENTURY
Second brick building completed after four
years of building (cornerstone laid April 25,
1780) in front of former 1739 structure for Old
St. Pauls Parish and dedicated May 30, 1784
on Whitsuntide/Pentecost. Previous church in
rear torn down in November 1786, except for
wooden bell steeple which is erected in middle
of surrounding cemetery.
Night Watch and appointment of constables
for daytime patrols authorized to town commissioners. Beginnings of future Baltimore
City Police Department. Watchmen and
constable patrols later reorganized in 1857,
under a Police Marshal after riots, voting
frauds and increased corruption under "KnowNothings" political movement, (appointment
of George Proctor Kane during Civil Warera) and brought under state control with appointment by Governor of Maryland in 1860.
Union Army places city under martial law and
arrests Marshal and members of new Police
Board for disloyalty, later conned in Fort
McHenry and Fort Warren in Boston in 1861
and runs police force to 1865. Police commissioner as department head appointments begun in 1920, authority transferred to Mayor of
Baltimore in the 1980s.
William Murphy, local bookseller, established
a small circulating library among interested
customers and town citizens.
A survey is made among town citizens as to
the work of the town commissioners and services needed with peoples needs of government. Citizens begin to discuss and write in
local newspaper about the need for a charter
and incorporation of town or to become a city
and what that would entail, require and cost.
Brigadier General Mordecai Gist arrives
from Annapolis and the Southern Theatre
of the War with remnants of the "Maryland
Line", about 300 men, on July 27, followed
in September by Major General Nathaniel
Greene, commander of southern army,
Continental Army, accompanied by Major
Hyrne, arrived in the town from Charleston,
South Carolina.
First convention meets of the local newly
organized Diocese of Maryland, formed in
Chestertown, Maryland. Adopts a new constitution recognizing the separation of church
and state, with no special status for members
of the Anglican faith in the Church of England
in the state.

1785 First German Reformed Church builds

building at Market (later East Baltimore) and Front
Streets, by Jones Falls with contributions from membership.

Construction of church for German Reformed

congregation from 1771 (later known as
Otterbein United Methodist Church) at South
Sharp and West Conway Streets. (oldest
church building still in use in city). Led by
Philip William Otterbein (17261813), later
forms Church of the United Brethren in Christ.
1786 Presbytery of Baltimore organized, led by
Rev. Dr. Patrick Allison (17401802), of First
Presbyterian Church of Baltimore, then located
at North Street (now Guilford Avenue) and East
Fayette Street.
1787 1,955 dwellings in town.[4]
1788 Assemblies, debates, newspaper articles and
elections commence around issue of whether Maryland should ratify new United States Constitution
drawn up in Philadelphia by convention meeting
during the summer. Baltimoreans celebrate adoption of new government by having parade of various
town ocials, units and tradesmen processing to the
rugged cli-side heights south of the town and harbor for a festival picnic that Fall. Site thereafter always known as "Federal Hill.
1789 Ceremonial procession of newly elected rst
President of the United States George Washington
escorted through city in mid-April by local militia
regiments, ocials and bands on his way north from
home at Mount Vernon, near Alexandria, Virginia to
New York Citys Federal Hall for his rst inauguration April 30. Elaborate banquet and toasts held at
the famous Fountain Inn, most important local hotel at northeast corner of Light/St. Paul and German
(now Redwood) Streets.
Ordination of rst Roman Catholic bishop in
America, Father John Carroll and erection of
rst see (diocese) in the Nation at Baltimore,
encompassing all of the U.S.A. He returns to
city the next year for installation and establishment of the rst Catholic cathedral (procathedral) at St. Peters Congregation (established 1770) at northwestern side of North
Charles and West Saratoga Streets (across the
street from Old St. Pauls Episcopal Church,
oldest Anglican/Episcopal parish in Maryland.
Formation of an independent Protestant
Episcopal Church in the U.S.A., separated
from the Church of England, (the Mother
Church); Diocese of Maryland previously
organized nine years before in Chestertown,
Maryland elects and ordains its rst bishop
for the Episcopalians in America is Thomas
John Claggett (17431816), who is consecrated at Trinity Church in 1792 for the new
Diocese. The American Church remains an
important part of the growing world-wide

2.2

1750s1790s
Anglican Communion which follows the later
expansion of the British Empire during the
19th and 20th Centuries. Adoption of its own
American revision of the Book of Common
Prayer for church services of liturgies and
Christian worship.
Baltimore Society for Promoting the Abolition
of Slavery founded.

1790 Population of the town: 13,503 people in the

First ocial census of the new United States Federal
Government, now to be taken every decade.[5]
1791 St. Marys Seminary established in former tavern on Hookstown Road (northwestern road
heading out of city now Pennsylvania Avenue) by
the rst American Bishop John Carroll.
Construction of large brick Georgian/Federalstyle Rectory completed after two years for
minister, Dr. William West of Old St. Pauls
Parish (since 1779) at West Saratoga Street
at north end of newly named Liberty Streetextension of South Sharp Street, who dies before completion. Occupied by next minister, Rev. Joseph J.G. Bend after Dr. West
dies. Known as the Parsonage on the Hill,
it becomes the oldest continuously residential
home occupied in the city to the early 1990s.
Replaces earlier wood-frame St. Pauls parsonage at Forest (later North Charles) and New
Church (later Lexington) Streets site of Fidelity Building), one block south.
1793 Additional French refugees from Caribbean
island colony of Santo Domingo (modern Haiti)
arrive in port following rebellion by local Negro
slaves under Toussaint L'Overture and settle in local Frenchtown community (southwest of Charles
and Lombard Streets, west of the Basin), joining
earlier Acadians (French Canadian) from Nova Scotia and British persecution in the mid 1750s.
1794 James Calhoun becomes mayor of Baltimore Town (to 1804). Marylands rst re insurance
company, the Baltimore Equitable Society (later on
southeast corner of East Fayette and North Paca
Streets) founded and remains in business up to the
2000s. Fire insurance Policy No. 1, issued April 10,
1794 to Humphrey Pierce, for 3-story brick building/dwelling on East Baltimore, between South and
Calvert Streets. Cast-iron re mark device issued
with policy on June 25, 1794, to Edward Walsh,
placed on building at 1635 Shakespeare Street, Fells
Point.
1795 Holliday Street Theater opens on Holliday Street between East Fayette and Lexington
(then Orange Alley) Streets, designed by architect
Robert Cary Long, Sr. (father of more famous

11
son/architect-Robert Cary Long, Jr. and becomes
most important playhouse in the city.
1796 City of Baltimore incorporated with approximate
population of 20,000 and begins functioning next
year. James Calhoun continues as rst mayor (to
1804).
Library Company of Baltimore founded and opens
on October 22 at home of Mr. Williams on Lemon
Street, later incorporated by the State Legislature
on January 20, 1797. Located at Old AssemblyRooms building (landmark Georgian/Federal twostory structure with front pediment and large rooms
on rst level for social levees, dancing and receptions/dinners/banquets for the up-and-coming social set), designed by Col. Nicholas Rogers (of
Druid Hill estate) with later architect Robert Cary
Long, Sr. as builder, along with James Donaldson
and Hessington & Lander. Constructed next door to
future famous Holliday Street playhouse at northeast
corner of Holliday and East Fayette Streets, built
1798 .[6]
1797 Incorporation of old Baltimore Town completed into new entity Mayor and City Council of
Baltimore (City of Baltimore) begins functioning
with elections as James Calhoun continues as now
rst Mayor (to 1804) with new city oces established by 1800 at 90 Baltimore Street (formerly
Market Street). Some of the City ocials of the
time were: 8 superintendents of pumps, 7 measurers of lumber, 4 wood corders, 2 hay weighers, 3
commissioners of the watch and lighting, 2 inspectors of our, 1 inspector of salt provisions.
Launching of rst ship on September 9 of
Original Six Frigates for new re-organized
United States Navy is the U.S.F. Constellation,
built on Harris Creek|near modern Canton)
by David Stoddard in his navy yard, designed
by the revolutionary, precedent-setting shipbuilder/architect Joshua Humphreys (1751
1838), with 36 guns. Later known as the Yankee Clipper, the U.S.F. Constellation, under the
command of its rst captain, Thomas Truxton,
is soon joined by others from other East Coast
ports: USS Constitution (Boston), United States
(1797), Congress (1799), President (1800),
Chesapeake (1799) (or Independence) in the
later 1790s. The new American Naval ships
soon establish a formidable reputation for
speed and armament when the quasi-naval
war breaks out with the new French Republic late in the decade and later conicts with
the pirate Muslim sultanates of North Africa,
nicknamed the "Barbary Coast" in the early
1800s.

12

3 19TH CENTURY
Capt. David Porter, Sr., establishes a signalhouse on "Federal Hill" on a wooden tower
to signal notices of any in-coming ships passing the point at Bodkin Creek (Rock Point)
or North Point. Later replaced after Civil
War and the earthworks of the Union Army's
Fort Federal Hill by another more well-built,
architecturally pleasing wooden-frame tower
until razed in the 1880s. Rugged, jagged
heights overlooking downtown business district Basin on southern side in future Federal
Hill community in South Baltimore.
Maryland Academy of Science and Literature
originally founded as an amateur scientic society of curious and intellectual gentlemen of
the Town. Sometimes operates small museum Map of Baltimore, 1867
and astronomical observatory and meets infrequently for discussions, debates and lectures. 3 19th century
Later re-organizes several times and continues
throughout the 19th and 20th into 21st Cen3.1 1800s1840s
turies

1798
Reconstruction begins of old Revolutionary
War fortications at Fort Whetstone at end
of southern peninsula between Basin (modern Inner Harbor) and Northwest Branch of
Patapsco River on its north side to Middle and
Ferry (now Southern) Branches on its south
side. Star-shaped Fort McHenry, renamed for
James McHenry, third Secretary of War under Presidents George Washington and John
Adams.
With support of towns doctors, state legislature appropriates $8,000 and later adds another $3,000 for construction of a City Hospital for the sick and lunatics, City Council
committee chooses site at Broadway and East
Monument Street and opens Baltimore General Dispensary.

1799 Organization of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of the State of Maryland (state medical
society known as Med Chi) by 101 physicians
in the State at Annapolis in January. Later becomes
a state aliate of the national body, the American
Medical Association when it is founded in 1847.

City Council outlaws any further buildings of

wood to be constructed in new city to lessen
increasing chances of re.

1800 Population of the new City on the Basin of

the Patapscos Northwest Branch at the beginning of
the 19th Century: 26,504 people (according to the
Second Decennial United States Census of 1800).[7]
1803
Fort McHenry building reconstruction completed at end of peninsula to Whetstone Point
between Northwest Branch and Middle or
Ferry Branches of Patapsco River after four
years of construction replacing earlier fortications of old Fort Whetstone with earthen
embankments from Revolutionary War-era.
Named for James McHenry (17531816), of
Maryland, third Secretary of War (1796
1800) under Presidents George Washington (administration: 17891797) and John
Adams, (administration: 17971801). Later
attacked by British forces during War of 1812
in September 1814 during Battle of Baltimore,
then used as prison for Southern sympathizers during Civil War, nally as major military
hospital with several temporary wooden structures surrounding old brick fort during World
War I. Transferred by U.S. War Department to
City for use as a public park in 1914, during
"Star Spangled Banner" Centennial Celebration, but interrupted by military hospital service, 19171919. Buildings razed and limited
restoration attempted until transferred to new
National Park Service of U.S. Department of
the Interior as a national historic site. Nearby
residential and industrial community develops
on the peninsula named Locust Point.[8]
Dispensary founded and incorporated for pro-

3.1

1800s1840s
viding primitive medical and drug need for indigent citizens of the burgeoning town.[5]
Secession of parishioners from First Presbyterian Church of Baltimore (founded 1761)
at East Fayette and North (now Guilford Avenue) after death of long-time minister Rev.
Patrick Allison in 1802. Conict spills over
into national politics over calling new pastor between Dr. James Inglis (supporter
of Hamilton's Federalists), versus Dr. John
Glendy, (follower of Jeersons Republicans).
Eventual formation of later Second Presbyterian Church with Glendy as minister with new
congregation promising to build new structure
which is located later at East Baltimore and
Lloyd Streets in Jonestown/Old Town of East
Baltimore.
Christmas Eve marriage of local merchant,
nancier and civic leader William Pattersons
beautiful socialite teen-age daughter Elizabeth
(Betsy) Patterson Bonaparte, (1785-1879),
to visiting Jerome-Napoleon Bonaparte,
(1784-1860), younger brother of First Consul and future French Emperor Napoleon
Bonaparte, sollemized to by local Roman
Catholic Bishop John Carroll, (1735-1815),
of the Diocese of Baltimore, rst bishop and
diocese in the nation. The Emperor Napoleon
later causes for the marriage to be annulled
and results in an international incident and
romantic saga lasting decades.

1805 Fourth Baltimore County Courthouse and

second Baltimore County/City Courthouse began
construction on southwest corner of North Calvert
Street and East Lexington Street across from old
Courthouse Square with old Courthouse on Stilts
with cupola stood from 1769 to 1771, when county
seat was moved from old Joppa, 1769. Here was
where the Declaration of Independence was read to
local populace, July 26, 1776 and site of many mass
meetings Towns population during crisis events.
Old structure said to be in a state of ruinous decay, and the public records therein deposited considerably endangered. Designed by local builder and
woodworker George Milleman of GeorgianFederal
styles architecture. Additional construction work
done by William Steuart with stonework and Col.
James Mosher with bricklaying. Initial outlaid cost
of $50,000 and later another $3,000 per year during
building, nally additional $20,000 for completion
and for construction of neighboring watch-house,
project nally completed 1809, with records moved
and new court in session. Struck by disastrous re
in 1835 and rebuilt, lasted until razed 1894 when
replaced by present third City Courthouse, completed 1900 (renamed 1985 for civil rights activist
Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr.).

13
1806 St. Marys Seminary relocates from old
tavern on Hookstown Road (modern Pennsylvania
Avenue) since 1791 to North Paca Street, by St.
Marys and Orchard Streets (in later Seton Hill
neighborhood, in northwestern edge of downtown,
o Druid Hill Avenue and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Boulevard). Adds secular institution for men St.
Marys College in 1805, incorporated by the Roman
Catholic Diocese of Baltimore which served as a
prominent collegiate institution of secular higher
learning in the rst-half of the 19th Century for
some of Baltimores talented youth and soon-to-be
leading men, sponsored by the Sulpicians religious
order until closed in 1852 and soon replaced in the
Diocese by Loyola College and Loyola High School
run by the Jesuits (Society of Jesus).
Cornerstone laid in July for new Cathedral
for Roman Catholic Diocese of Baltimore, located on hill north of smaller city in Howards
Woods on the Belvidere estate of Col. John
Eager Howard (17521827), former commander of the famed "Maryland Line" regiment in the Continental Army during the
American Revolution. Ceremonies conducted
by rst Roman Catholic Bishop in America,
John Carroll (17351815), (located on future
Cathedral Hill on Cathedral Street, between
West Mulberry and West Franklin Streets in
Mount Vernon-Belvedere neighborhood). Designed by famous British-American architect
Benjamin Henry Latrobe (17641820), in
Greek Revival style architecture. Construction will continue for fteen years until dedication twenty years later, although still partially
un-completed with the cupolas with distinctive
Eastern Orthodox style minarets added later
in 1836, and the columned front portico in
the 1870s (under the supervision of architects
grandson noted lawyer, artist, literary gure
and civic leader John H. B. Latrobe).
1807
University of Maryland founded in downtown Baltimore along with future College of
Medicine of Maryland as the oldest public and
fth oldest medical school in the United States.
Later construction in 181213 of domed
structure resembling the ancient Pantheon in
Rome, with a Greek Revival designed front
portico now known as Davidge Hall (named
for rst professor and dean, Dr. John Beale
Davidge in 1959, after a later structure bearing his name was razed) at the northeast corner
of West Lombard and South Greene Streets.
Oldest continuously used building for medical
education in the Northern Hemisphere. Later
additional graduate schools of Law, Dentistry,

14

3 19TH CENTURY
Pharmacy, and Social Work are added to
the University which eventually expands to a
state-wide, multi-campus system, two hundred
years later.
Baltimore Museum and Gallery of Fine Arts
established by Rembrandt Peale (17781860),
and Charles Willson Peale (17411827), at
northwest corner of East Baltimore Street and
North Calvert Street. Replaces earlier museum and gallery of 18121813 on Holliday
near East Lexington Streets. Later run by P.
T. Barnum.[9]
Baltimore Circulating Library in business.[10]

1808 Roman Catholic Diocese of Baltimore elevated by Pope Pius VII (17421823, served 1800
1823), to status of an archdiocese with creation
of additional dioceses of (Bardstown in Bardstown,
Kentucky for the West, later the see was moved
in 1841 to the larger nearby river port town of
Louisville, Kentucky as the Diocese of Louisville
for the Western U.S.) on the Ohio River and appointments of additional bishops for dioceses across
America: Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, with
Baltimores Bishop John Carroll, now also elevated
to archbishop, serving as a supervisor of other areas in the premier see. Carroll serves as rst
Archbishop of Baltimore, later establishing the rst
synods and convocations of priests and bishops for
the Church until his death in 1815.
Dedication of St. Marys Seminary Chapel
designed by J. Maxmilian M. Godefroy on
North Paca Street with additional Seminary
(founded 1791 on Pennsylvania Avenue site)
and rst set of L-shaped Seminary and College
buildings in GeorgianFederal style architecture surrounding in quadrangle, oldest Roman
Catholic seminary in U.S.A. Seminary buildings replaced in the 1870s by second set of
structures in Victorian architecture, later razed
1975 and replaced by present St. Marys Park
in future Seton Hill community.
First fatality among Night Watchmen, Citys
small policing force organized since 1784.
N.W. George Workner of the Middle District killed on March 15th, after mass escape
by nine inmates from the new Baltimore City
Jail (built seven years earlier on East Madison Street, above east bank of the Jones Falls).
Men had used pewter eating utensils to fashion keys to unlock cells and somewhere also
secured use of a knife to aid in their attempt.
All nine had committed violent crimes and had
been sentenced to the roads (chain gang doing road reconstruction work) during their
imprisonment. Workner stabbed with small
three-inch blade and dies the next day. First

ocially recorded death among rolls of future Baltimore City Police Department (reorganized and established in 1857/1859 under State control of Governor of Maryland).
All of the convicts were later recaptured and
four were sentenced to hang for the additional
crime ve weeks later.
1809 Joseph Robinsons Circulating Library established in business.[10]
Completion of new second Baltimore
County/City Courthouse at southwest corner
ofNorth Calvert Street and East Lexington
Street after four years construction project
begun 1805. Razing of old Courthouse
on Stilts in middle of old Courthouse
Square (sometimes briey called Washington
Square then). Later site is designated and
initial laying of cornerstone July 4, 1815 for
future Washington Monument here until later
decision that summer of being too tall for limited area of location. Then designated as site
for shorter Battle Monument commemorating
fallen in Battle of Baltimore from 1814, with
construction from 1815 to 1827.
1810 Population counted by the Third United States
Census of 1810: 46,535 people in Baltimore,
making it now the third largest city in America
under gures from the U.S. Census.[7]
Alex. Brown & Sons originally formed by
Alexander Brown in 1800, incorporated rm
and joined by sons William, George, John and
James. Becomes world-famous nancial investment rm and later located by 1901 at
southwest corner of East Baltimore and North
Calvert Streets, which their small, elaborate
building notably survived Great Baltimore Fire
in downtown in February 1904. Later addition to the west of similarly styled buildings by 1907. Old headquarters historically
restored in the early 1980s by Chevy Chase
Bank (later absorbed by Capital One Bank)
of Bethesda, Maryland. Venerable Brown nancial rm absorbed by Bankers Trust rm
in 1997, and later BT Alex. Brown taken over
by German giant Deutsche Bank banking conglomerate in 1999 and relocates to Commerce
Place tower of 1991 at East Baltimore Street,
between South and Commerce Streets in the
2000s. Later inuential descendent member of the family is George William Brown
(18121890), lawyer, civic reformer leader
and Mayor of Baltimore during the early Civil
War in 18601861 and involved in the infamous Pratt Street Riots of 1861. A noted attorney, he was also a founder of the Library

3.1

1800s1840s
Company of the Baltimore Bar, located on
the second oor of the second Baltimore City
and County Courthouse in 1840 and advocated for a free public library in 1859, twentythree years before Enoch Pratt, (1808-1896),
endowed and organized his Free Library gift
to the City (18821886).

1811 First issue of what becomes the well-known

national newspaper "Niles Weekly Register" published by Hezekiah Niles (17771839), (previous editor of B"altimore Evening Post and Mercantile
Daily Advertiser, from 1805 to 1811), on Saturday,
September 7th. Niles publishes illustrated paper
from Baltimore for 25 years until September 1836,
until passed to his son William Ogden Niles who
continues paper in expanded form and revamped
format from the City for one year until he moves
printing oce in September 1837, to Washington,
D.C., under new title of Niles National Register.
Father and founder Hezekiah dies in Wilmington,
Delaware in April 1839, aged 63. Papers publication oces moved back to Baltimore in May 1839,
and continues from there under his widow, Sallay
Ann Niles sells to Jeremiah Hughes, former editor
of an Annapolis paper who continues the Register
until ceasing publication in February 1848.
Maryland Penitentiary constructed and
opened in November east of Jones Falls and
previous Baltimore City Jail opened a decade
earlier (1801, later renamed in the 1990s as
the "Baltimore City Detention Center") on future East Madison Street, west o Greenmount
Avenue (old York Road/Turnpike and on the
east bank of the Jones Falls. The Maryland
Pen later becomes the second oldest correctional facility in America, next to Eastern
State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. Prison
rebuilt and expanded from 1894 to 1897,
nally completed in 1899, with two massive
gray stone Gothic Revival style wings (the
notorious South Wing facing Greenmount
Avenue - site of several riots, and the West
Wing along East Eager Street) with a large
landmark central administrative section under
its landmark pyramid capstone roof. Houses
death row and execution chambers for the
death penalty. Later becomes agship institution of Maryland state correctional system
with several state-wide locations (Jessup,
Hagerstown, Princess Anne, and Cumberland)
and old Maryland Pen renamed in the 1990s
as Metropolitan Transition Center
1812 Construction of domed revolutionarydesigned lecture hall and classroom building for
new University of Maryland Medical College, later
known as Davidge Hall (named for Dr. John

15
Beale Davidge), at northeast corner of West Lombard at South Greene Streets, designed by Robert
Cary Long, Jr. (18101849). Landmark with front
portico has name of school painted on wall behind
massive white front Doric columns, remains a city
landmark into the 21st century.
Riot and attack by pro-war sympathizers in old
Republican Party against Federalist-leaning
editors, led by Alexander Contee Hanson
(17861819) of the anti-war Federalist Party
newspaper The Federal Republican oces two
days after a sharply divided U.S. Congress declares war against Great Britain in the War
of 1812, on June 22 at South Gay and Second (later Water) Streets tearing down and
leveling building and throwing presses, type
and paper into streets. Hanson takes refuge
in home of partner Jacob Wagner on South
Charles Street (between Pratt and Lombard
Streets) and issues another editorial condemning the city watch (police), the town and the
mayor and comparing to French Revolution
radicalism on July 27. Later on July 29, and
one month (June 18) after the war declaration, Maryland State Militia with cannon under Major John Barney brother of famed naval
Commander Joshua Barney (17591818), and
General John Stricker; (17581825), (later of
North Point battle fame), along with Mayor
Edward Johnson (17671829) prevail upon
editors and escorts endangered newspapermen
after day-long attacks and riots in the streets
around the Federalists house to new 11-yearold Baltimore City Jail on east side of Jones
Falls (near modern East Madison Street and
The Fallsway), for protection. Later that night,
another mob attacks and drags out the prisoners, assisted by a man named Mumma,
who opens the back gates, and literally tries
to tear them to shreds, kills a former Revolutionary War general, James Lignan, maims
and injures former Washington aide General
Henry (Light Horse Harry) Lee, (father of
late U.S. Army ocer and Confederate General Robert E. Lee) and injures many others. Tragic incident brands Baltimore, the then
hated nickname of Mob Town. Local reaction is so severe that Federalists win National Congressional elections that Fall, electing Hanson to Congress. Considered to be
the rst incident in America of martyrs for
Freedom of the Press (with a listing on a
memorial to press freedom at the "Newseum"
in Rosslyn, Virginia in 1995, across the Potomac River from Washington, sponsored by
the Gannett newspaper syndicate/chain, later
relocated to prominent Pennsylvania Avenue
in Washington).

16

3 19TH CENTURY
Baltimore and Fells Point become great center and base for outtting "privateers" on anything American that could oat and hold some
artillery to raid British maritime commerce.
With their Royal Navy so busy defending the
British Isles, colonies and trade plus military
communication routes from Napoleon Bonaparte. Captains like Thomas Boyle commanding the Chasseur (later becomes famous with
the slogan of the Pride of Baltimore and
namesake for future late 20th Century two
replica ships built as good will ambassadors)
and the Comet and with Joshua Barney,
(17591818), captaining the Rossie, earning for the city another nickname as the nest
of pirates. New types of ships are developed
such as the sleek "Baltimore clipper", which
are fast and can dart into shallow coastal waters for protection.

Regular U.S. Navy warships like some of the Original Six frigates of 1797, such as the U.S.F. Constitution (of Boston) and U.S.F. Constellation from Baltimore
have several stunning victories but later get bottled up in
American harbor by later British blockade of east coast,
later stiing Baltimore commerce. Most War action in
rst year is on the Great Lakes and Canadian borders.
1813 Holliday Street Theatre (also known then as
the New Theatre or Baltimore Theatre) of original wooden construction from 1794 to 1795, rebuilt in stone and brick with Greek Revival motifs by
Robert Cary Long, Sr. and opened on May 10 with
rst performance. Owned by joint stock company
with Col. James Mosher and cost $50,000. Located
on east side of Holliday Street between East Lexington and East Fayette Streets next to earlier Long
project, the famous old Assembly-Rooms (also of
Greek Revival style) for social levees, dances and receptions of the moderately wealthy and comfortable
social set, built in the late 1790s.
British Royal Navy and Army under command of hated Rear Admiral Sir George
Cockburn (17721853), raid towns and villages up and down shores of Chesapeake
Bay from their base on Virginias Tangier Island making the Bay a British Lake. Attack and burn Havre de Grace in northeast
Harford County. Chesapeake Bay Flotilla of
Commodore Joshua Barney (17591818), of
barges and small boats defy British sea power,
but are chased up the Patuxent River and scuttled the following year at Pig Point.
Committee of three important military visitors: Maj. Gen. Samuel Smith (1752
1839), Maj.George Armistead,(17801818),
Brig. Gen. John Stricker (17581825), and

her brother-in-law, Commodore Joshua Barney (17591818), call upon Mrs. Mary Young
Pickersgill (17761857), at her Federal-style
corner townhouse at East Pratt Street (formerly 44 Queen Street) at Albemarle Street,
east of the Jones Falls in Jonestown/Old Town
to request she make a huge American ag of
30 by 42 feet in size with fteen red and white
stripes and fteen stars of wool bunting and
a smaller-size 17 by 25 feet storm ag of
similar design. Major Armistead explained
in a letter/report to his superiors his need to
have an ensign that the British would have
no trouble seeing it from any distance. Mrs.
Pickersgill, a well-known local maker of ags,
banners and pennants was the daughter of
Mrs. Rebecca Flowers Young of Philadelphia
who made the original "Grand Union Flag" of
thirteen red and white stripes with a British
"Union Jack" in the canton/upper eld to Gen.
George Washington (17321799), when he
took command in the name of the Continental Congress which he raised over his
Continental Army troops at his headquarters
in Cambridge, Massachusetts in June 1775,
when surrounding the British in Boston after
the outbreak of hostilities at Lexington and
Concord and the Battle of Bunker Hill. She
accepts the contract and recruits her whole
household including her daughter Caroline,
two nieces and a free Black woman servant in
the project. After beginning the sewing in her
front room, she nished up the assembly of the
massive banner by assembling the pieces on
her hands and knees on the wooden oor of the
neighboring malt house/warehouse of the Peters/Brown/Johnson/Claggetts Brewery (then
owned by Baltimore Mayor Edward Johnson (17671829)) down the street on South
Front Streets southeast corner by East Fayette
Street (modern Brewers Park, archeological project developed in the early 1990s by the
Baltimore City Life Museums). She delivers
the completed ags on August 19, 1813 (a fullyear before the British attack) to the commanders at Fort McHenry and keeps her receipt
dated Oct. 27, 1813 for all history of $405.90
for the big ag and $168.54 for the smaller
storm ag, a ceremony which has been revived
and reenacted in the 1990s.
1814 In total maritime command of the
Chesapeake Bay for the last year, the British Royal
Navy eet sails up the Patuxent River, landing at
Benedict to attack and burn the fourteen year old
National Capitals public buildings at Washington
City, including the 21-year-old Capitol, still under
construction since 1792 with two wings for the
Senate and House of Representatives connected

3.1

1800s1840s
by a wooden-roofed walkway in between and also
housing the Supreme Court and the new book
collections of the Library of Congress the largest
then existing in America, the Executive Mansion"/"Presidents House, with surrounding four
small Federal-styled oce buildings containing
Departments of War, State, Treasury and Navy,
and the Navy Yard on the Anacostia River/Eastern
Branch of the Potomac, Post Oce but spare the
U.S. Patent Oce and its collections of scientic
exhibits and models. This was in retaliation for
the earlier American burning of York in Ontario,
the capital of Upper Canada of British North
America, the year before, during the War of 1812.
After routing American militia at the Battle of
Bladensburg, northeast of the District of Columbia
in Prince Georges County in August, known
later derisively as the Bladensburg Races with
fourth President James Madison (17511836), and
Secretary of State James Monroe (17581831),
(and shortly new Secretary of War and later fth
President) looking on at the crushing defeat under
command of Gen. William H. Winder (1775
1824), of the newly organized local Fifth Military
District. Baltimorean Commodore Joshua Barney's
seamen and regular Navy artillery hold fast and
he is captured by the British commanders Ross
and Cockburn, paroled and released in recognition
of his bravery. Another British eet sails up the
Potomac River, past defending Fort Washington
which was south below the National Capital, which
was blown up by its commander then retreated.
Royal Navy detachment under Capt. Gordon lands
at colonial-era port at Alexandria (formerly in
Virginia, but then part of the District of Columbia)
and exacts a ransom from the town ocials after
seeing that their Army compatriots had already
evacuated Washington just to the northwest after
Ross, Cockburn and Cochrane were putting it to
the torch two days before. The eet moves back
downriver harassed by shallow water and sniping
American military units onshore.
September 1214, Battle of Baltimore
with British eet attack under Admirals,
Sir Alexander Cochrane (17581832) and
Sir George Cockburn (17721853), with
Gen. Robert Ross (17661814), landing and
marching up the Patapsco Neck peninsula
to the Battle of North Point, halting at fortications with artillery at Loudenschlagers
Hill (later Hampstead Hill/Patterson Park) and
bombardment of Fort McHenry, under command of regular U.S. Army Major George
Armistead (17801818). The defense of Fort
McHenry in the battle inspired Francis Scott
Key (17791843), to compose the poem Defence of Fort McHenry which later became
the lyrics for The Star-Spangled Banner, the

17
national anthem of the United States of America.
Later observed as "Defenders Day" on September 12 as
a state, county and city ocial holiday. Ross is killed in
a skirmish before the main North Point battle by militiamen Henry or Daniel? Wells and Richard or Henry McComas of Aisquiths Sharpshooters according to legend and command was assumed by Col. Arthur Brooke
(17721843). Under command of Brig. Gen. John
Stricker (17581825), the several Maryland Militia regiments march east out of town to hold the Redcoats for
several hours in a severe back-and-forth exchange of rie and cannon re on the battleeld on the narrow neck
of the peninsula known as Patapsco Neck or Godly
Wood between Back Rivers Bread and Cheese Creek
to the north and Bear Creek to the Patapsco River to
the south, when the left northern ank nally collapses,
Stricker withdraws his men back to the city in good order and the protective heavier fortications after having
considerably bloodied the stunned enemy who expected
another rout. British Army stays on the battleeld for the
night tending their wounded in a local Methodist Meeting
House along Old North Point Road and evacuating some
by barge at night down the creeks to the eet moored out
in Old Roads Bay o North Point and slowly advances
the next morning to a mile within sight of the heights
east of town (occupying Col. John Steretts home of
Surrey [still standing near modern Erdman Avenue and
Pulaski Highway, U.S. Route 40] and leaving a courteous note for the Colonel for his hospitality of dinner
and accommodations) on Loudenschlagers Hill (later
Hampstead Hill in modern-day Patterson Park) where
approx. 20,000 drafted and volunteer citizens along with
armed militia, regular U.S. Army and troops from Pennsylvania have fortied dug-in entrenchments, under overall command of Maj. Gen. Samuel Smith (17521839)
of Maryland Militia, who planned for months that British
would eventually come that very same way. Forces skirmish against each other for a day, moving and anking
back and forth moving north against Penningtons Mill
and south towards the shore near Fells Point and the range
of McHenrys artillery. Col. Brooke after war council among his ocers decides to await further bombardment by eet of fort and then move in to burn the nest
of pirates"!. Bombardment takes place over two days,
September 1314th, and Redcoats eventually give up
the attack, after their anking attack by barges at night
in a driving rain storm up the Ferry to Middle Branches,
hugging the southern opposite shore (future Brooklyn,
Curtis Bay and Faireld) to the west of the Fort. British
barges are red upon and turned back by alert sentries
and guns at outlying Forts Covington and Babcock, supported in the rear on the heights above by the Six-Gun
Battery at Camp Look-Out; present-day Riverside Park
(o Fort and Riverside Avenues). Bombardment ends
after rain and thunder storms of the night, with sight of
enormous 30 by 42 foot huge banner made a year earlier

18

3 19TH CENTURY

by Mary Pickersgill (17761857) of Jonestown unfurled

by Americans at rst light with booming of the morning
gun announcing the time and salute as British eet weighs
anchors and sets sail to the surprised eyes of lawyer
Key and his companions, John Skinner (17881851),
U.S. prisoner-of-war exchange agent and Dr. William
Beanes (17491828), on the truce ship Minden anchored downriver by North Point.

Peale Museum constructed 1813, opened by

Rembrandt Peale (17781860), in 1814 on
Holliday Street (300 block) between East
Saratoga and Lexington Streets. First building in the Americas designed specically as a
museum structure. Later site of rst gas lighting of interior rooms in America in June 1816.
Peale places a variety of exhibits here, including the remnants of a pre-historic mastodon
excavated by his father Charles Willson Peale
(17411827), along with various lectures and
performances during the next sixteen years until museum is reorganized and relocated to
northwest corner of East Baltimore and North
Calvert Streets. Holliday Street structure later
became old Baltimore City Hall 1830 to 1875,
the rst Negro/Afro-American public school,
and several other uses and then renovated and
restored in 1931 under Great Depression-era
Mayor Howard W. Jackson (18771960), as
The Municipal Museum of the City of Baltimore (with long-time curator and expert in
city history after World War II, Wilbur Harvey Hunter), with a variety of exhibits, programs, lectures, tours and activities in local
heritage along with growing extensive collections of photographs, documents and memorabilia pertaining to Baltimore City. Added
in the late 1980s as agship exhibition center of municipal history to newly organized
public/private, multi-campus Baltimore City
Life Museums system of assembled historic
sites, houses and museums with the Phoenix
Shot Tower, Carroll Mansion, (the city townhouse of Charles Carroll of Carrollton), other
neighboring historic houses of the 1840s-era,
Brewers Park, an excavated archeological
site of former brewery where Mary Pickersgill
assembled the "Star Spangled Banner" ag;
the H. L. Mencken House by Union Square in
West Baltimore, the Edgar Allan Poe House
on Amity Street, the Old Town Friends Meeting House on Aisquith Street, and nally opening with great pageantry and fanfare during
Baltimore Citys Biccentennial in 1997, a new
exhibition gallery of four-stories using the old
reconstructed historic cast-iron faade of the
old Fava Fruit Company (long in storage for 28
years since its razing), facing President Street

Boulevard, north of the Carroll Mansion, with

a series of shows on the Citys history and life
which was a highpoint of the 199697 Municipal Bicentennial. The historical museums system and new gallery closed unfortunately after
a year of lower-than-expected attendance gures and a nancial crisis brought on by the
failure of the incumbent Mayor and city government to extend a ve-year term of annual
subsidies for one more year to cover the new
gallery.
1815
Battle Monument cornerstone laid on rst anniversary of the battle (the rst "Defenders
Day" commemorated) and construction continues to September 12, 1822 when Lady
Baltimore statue is raised to the summit
of the column. Situated in previous Courthouse Square at North Calvert Street between East Lexington and Fayette Streets
with site of second courthouse for Baltimore City/County of 18051809, having been
moved to the northwest side. Monument designed by French emigre architect J. Maximilian M. Godefroy of an Egyptian-style tomb
surmounted by a Roman-style group of rods,
bound together by straps (known as fasces)
with names engraved of the casualties of the
common soldiers (rst to be memorialized in
a war monument in America) that fell in the
North Point battle and Ft. McHenry bombardment, the year before. Four grins at
corners of the base. Lady Baltimore robed
gure, holding a laurel wreath aloft in one
hand and a boat tiller in the other, symbolizing the city maritime heritage. Monument
was surrounded by an iron fence with raised
cannons at four corners. First monument to
commemorate the common soldier in America. Quickly becomes local landmark and
continues to be the major assembly point of
the citizens of the city in times of unrest,
peril or controversy, surrounded by expensive Georgian/Federal-style townhouses at the
time (later replaced in the 19th and 20th Centuries by hotels and mansions and later by judicial buildings) and portrayed thereafter on
City Seal (and later municipal ag and logos of
city departments/agencies) and becomes symbol of Baltimore as The Monumental City
as declared in local speech in 1827 by sixth
President John Quincy Adams (17671848),
along with other subsequent landmark structures such as the taller Washington Monument.[2]
Corner stone for new Washington Monument
(Baltimore) laid with great ceremonies on

3.1

1800s1840s
Independence Day, July 4, 1815 in old Courthouse Square at North Calvert Street between
East Lexington and Fayette Streets, after the
new second City/County Courthouse had been
moved to the northwest corner of the Square
several years before. After further discussions
during the summer and because of awareness
of a campaign also to raise a monument to
commemorate the dead from the recent battles which delivered the city from the invading British the previous Fall (the "Battle Monument"), and concern by neighbors of the
expensive Georgian/Federal-style townhouses
which had now closely surrounded the proposed small site where the old Courthouse formerly stood, with the planned height of architect Robert Mills column to commemorate
the rst president with fears it was too tall and
close to nearby residences in case it should topple, caused the new Washington Monument
for Baltimore to be relocated to an area of
Howards Woods further north and at the
edge of the citys then development on land
of his estate Belvedere donated by inuential
citizen Col. John Eager Howard (17521827),
and later to be surrounded with four rectangular landscaped park squares to be known by the
1830s as Mount Vernon Place and Washington
Place at the circle at North Charles Street with
East and West Monument Streets.

1816 Baltimore Exchange (also known as

the Merchants Exchange), constructed 181620.
Originally planned as an 'H'-shaped Greco-Roman
structure with a low dome and a second-oor catwalk promenade around an interior atrium, then the
largest building in America. Designed by architect Benjamin H. B. Latrobe assisted by J. Maximilian M. Godefroy fronting on South Gay Street,
with its South Wing along East Lombard Street
and its North Wing on Second (now Water) Street,
but temporarily completed only as a 'T'. A Western
Wing added later for an 5-story Exchange Hotel
(later torn down in 1871 when a one-story annex
was added to the Post Oce section, giving it its
completed originally planned 'H' shape). (Houses
wings for Federal customs house, U.S. (Federal District and Circuit) Courts, Post Oce, and a branch
of the famous Bank of the United States (extended
historical battle in 1820s30s between the Federalist/Conservative administrations and national nancial interests that established BofUS under Washington/Hamilton administrations and seventh President Andrew Jackson (18291837) to kill it), with
early oces and held a temporary city hall for Baltimore City, and oces for local private shipping
companies, brokers, attorneys/lawyers, candlers and
various maritime businesses. Even the Maryland
Institute held classes here briey during the late

19
1830s and 1840s before constructing their landmark
1851 building over Centre Market (Marsh Market) by the Jones Falls, two blocks east. Massive
rotunda was later site of President Abraham Lincoln lying-in-state during one day after procession
through city during traveling to Springeld, Illinois
for burial in April 1865. Razed by 190102 and
replaced in 190307 by present Beaux Arts-style,
marble and granite U.S. Customs House. During
construction, the foundations were weakened by the
passing restorm of the Great Baltimore Fire of
February 1904, before it ended just to the east at
the Jones Falls. Work resumed and the foundations
were strengthened as the project proceeded.[11]
First demonstration of interior gas lighting by
Rembrandt Peale (17781860) in a room at his
Baltimore Museum and Gallery of Fine Arts
on Holliday Street, between East Saratoga
and Lexington Streets on June 13. With
other far-sighted businessmen, later founds
the Gas Light Company of Baltimore (later
known as the Consolidated Gas, Electric
Light and Power Company of Baltimore City,
then later renamed Baltimore Gas and Electric Company, recently merged/"taken-over
with Exelon Corporation of Chicago (merger
of former Unicom, previously Consolidated
Edison electric utility of Chicago, (founded
1907); and PECO, formerly the Philadelphia
Electric Company in Pennsylvania, (established 1881, formed in 2012) on June 17, 1816
as rst chemical industry concern or utility
company in the nation.
Asbury College founded by Methodists,
named for Rev. Francis Asbury (17451816),
well-known and traveled church missionary in
the Middle Atlantic area who was the rst to
be ordained a Methodist bishop in America
at the famous Christmas Conference in
December 1784 at Lovely Lane Chapel,
o German and Light Streets and began
organizing a Methodist Episcopal Church in
America, which led to the modern United
Methodist Church. Established about 20
years after earlier Cokesbury College established by Methodists around Light Street and
East Baltimore Street, but burned in large
block-size re in 1798? Asbury College later
licensed by State of Maryland in 1818 with
Samuel K. Jennings as president. Active to c.
1832 but closed shortly after that.
1817 Establishment and construction of First Independent Church of Baltimore begins, later to
be known as the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore (Unitarian and Universalist) at northwest
corner of West Franklin Street and North Charles
Street, which is now the oldest continually occu-

20

3 19TH CENTURY
pied church of Unitarians in America. Designed by
French migr architect J. Maximilian M. Godefroy
with distinctive cube surmounted by dome architecture and domed rotunda ceiling interior. Godefroy had also earlier designed the Battle Monument
several blocks away on North Calvert Street between East Lexington and Fayette Streets, which began construction on "Defenders Day in September 1815 and wasn't completed until 1822. Two
years later, on May 5, 1819, this new Baltimore
church is the site of a famous sermon or homily
known as the Baltimore Sermon by noted minister William Ellery Channing from Federal Street
Church in Boston at the ordination of the rst minister Jared Sparks (who also became famous and successful in his own right decades later) which enunciates various principles which are later considered
essential to Unitarianism and inuential in forming
and organizing the church and later denomination
and are observed and remembered on their anniversary to this day.
Construction after war hostilities have ceased
of small memorial stone obelisk monument
along old Long Log Lane, later old North
Point Road several miles north of the Redcoats landing site at North Point in southeastern Baltimore County in memory of their comrade, soldier Aquila Randall of the Mechanical Volunteers regiment under command of
Benjamin C. Howard, formed from rst town
volunteer re ghting company. First war
memorial to a common soldier. Also traditionally killed at this site along with the
British Army commander, Gen. Robert Ross
by "Wells and McComas (Daniel Wells and
Henry McComas)", in early skirmish, leading to the Battle of North Point, of September
12th, 1814 (Defenders Day).
Death of the second Archbishop of Baltimore
on June 18, the Very Rev. Leonard Neale, S.J.,
(17461817), who had served since 1815 and
the death of the rst bishop/archbishop, John
Carroll. Bishop Neale was succeeded by Father Ambrose Marechal (17641828), as third
archbishop who serves Baltimores Catholics,
1817 to 1828.

1818 Authorized by act of General Assembly of

Maryland in 1816, City has rst general wide annexation (After 1729 foundation of Baltimore Town
and mergers with Joness Town (1745) and Fells
Point (1773), previous annexations during 1780s
and 90s were piece-meal of groups of smaller
plots of dozens of acres, before municipal incorporation and reorganization into Baltimore City in
1796/1797) of now thirteen square miles of land
from surrounding Baltimore County on four sides
with about 12,000 residents added (known then as

Precincters). New City boundaries go north to

Boundary Avenue (now North Avenue), west to
XXX Avenue/Street, southwest to Gwynns Falls
stream and also south to the Middle and/or Ferry
Branches of the upper Patapsco River's Western
Branch, (including old Federal Hill area and old
South Baltimore on peninsula leading to Whetstone
Point and Ft. McHenry), however no expansion yet
approved by industrialists, merchants and residents
to the east on waterfront land still controlled for
commercial, industrial and residential development,
by the new Canton Company. These later communities/port facilities south of 1827 Patterson Park
along Patapsco Rivers Northwest Branch shore for
Canton develop separately at rst by the mid-19th
century by the newly formed Canton Company by
the son of immigrant ships Capt. John O'Donnell,
with the community of Highlandtown further northeast in the late 1800s and early 1900s as separate
towns in Baltimore County, continuing to resist the
two major annexation attempts by Baltimore City
in 1816 and 1888 and not added to the municipality
until 1919.
Early example of powered steamboat United
States launched on Independence Day, July
4th, in the Patapsco River of Baltimore Harbor.
1819
Independent Order of Odd Fellows founded
in America, established in Baltimore in 1831,
later builds hall of English Tudor Revival style
on North Gay Street by East Lexington Street
(1831?), replaced in 18911892 at northwest corner of West Saratoga and Cathedral
Streets with a red brick pile, which was later
renovated as oces in the 1980s and condos/apartments in 2013. Monument earlier
erected 1860s in median strip of Broadway by
East Fayette Street in memory of Odd Fellows
founder.
Inuential Baltimore Sermon preached by
Rev. Dr. William Ellery Channing noted minister of the Federal Street Church in Boston
on May 5, at ordination of rst minister Jared
Sparks (later becomes famous minister and educator himself) for two year old "First Independent Church of Baltimore" founded 1817
(later becomes First Unitarian Church of
Baltimore (Unitarian and Universalist)" after
1935 merger). Located in landmark structure designed by French migr architect J.
Maximilian M. Godefroy (who also designed
the Battle Monument for the War of 1812) of
cube and dome design at West Franklin and
North Charles Streets, oldest continually occupied church of Unitarians. Channings sermon

3.1

1800s1840s
inuences many others and eventually leads
to formation of new denomination in 1824
of Unitarian Church which later merges with
Universalists in 1961. An inordinate number
of inuential citizens and leaders have become
members and have had great inuences on social, religious and political thought in America, all out of proportion to their smaller numbers.
Independent Volunteer Fire Company (originally organized 1799 as Federal Fire Company) has re house constructed in Old
Town/Jonestown section at North Gay, and
Ensor Streets (later also facing Orleans Street
at east end of later Orleans Street Viaduct,
constructed 1930, built from parallel West
Franklin and Mulberry Streets in Mount
Venon-Belvedere neighborhood at St. Paul
Street, spanning over Jones Falls and several
north-south railroad tracks of the Northern
Central Railroad, Western Maryland Railway
and the Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad
to the west of rehouse). An additional campanile 103 foot landmark tower of Italianate
style designed by locals William Reasin and
Wetherald added in 18531854, with observation deck and large display clock faces (designed by Robert Hollaway, local watchmaker
and engineer in the Independent Company).
Fire equipment at the Independent Company
rst included a gallery engine, two suction
engines, two hose carriages and several hundred feet of hose. After dissolution of volunteer companies (and confederation system
of old Baltimore United Fire Department of
1835) in 1858 and beginning of paid professional current Baltimore City Fire Department, building is assigned to Engine Number
6 and later becomes the oldest re house in the
city. Replaced in the mid-1970s by nearby Old
Town (Chief Thomas Burke) Fire Station at
Greenmount Avenue and old No. 6 building
becomes site for the Box 414 Association,
an auxiliary B.C.F.D. reghter support organization and for a small Baltimore City Fire
Museum in 1974, (supplementing separate local re history institution, the Fire Museum of
Maryland in Timonium, Maryland just north
o York Road in suburban Baltimore County).

1821 The Genius of Universal Emancipation, the

nations rst exclusively anti-slavery newspaper published in Baltimore by famous abolitionist Benjamin
Lundy.
1820 Completion in June after ve years of monumental Merchants Exchange building on South
Gay Street between Water, (old) Second, South
Frederick and East Lombard Streets and later Ex-

21
change Place which opens for business. Designed
in an 'H'-shape with various wings for several Federal oces: U.S. Post Oce, Custom House, SubTreasury, and U.S. District and Circuit Courts of
Appeal, along with wing for local maritime, shipping and merchants oces and businesses, another
wing for local municipal oces and briey some
educational institutions temporarily, with later Exchange Hotel attached. Largest structure of its
time in America with large central rotunda and low
dome and interior atriums designed by famous architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe (17641820), on
the block bounded by South Gay, Frederick, Water and East Lombard Streets, under construction
since 1815. Landmark building symbolic of Baltimores commercial importance endures until around
1903 when razed and replaced by current marble
Beaux Arts/Classical styled of U.S. Custom House,
the foundations of which endure passing Great Baltimore Fire of February 1904.
1821
Maryland Academy of Science and Literature incorporated by Maryland General Assembly, founded originally in 1797 as an amateur scientic society. Small museum established later on South Charles Street. Participating members then included: Gilmor,
Howard, H---?, Maulsby, Ellicott, Poultney,
Pattison, Fisher, Donaldson, Tyson, Pennington, Charles Carroll of Carrollton (1737
1832), John H. B. Latrobe (son of architect
Benjamin Henry Latrobe) Occasional meetings and exhibitions during forty years after
1821. Later reorganized/re-incorporated under name of Maryland Academy of Sciences
in 1897 and then located at northeast corner
of West Franklin and Cathedral Street (old
Greek Revival styled mansion built for George
Homan, previously hall for Baltimores male
social elite, exclusive Southern/Confederatesympathizing Maryland Club, organized
1857 to 1894. Later site for old Central
YMCA Building in 19071909). Maryland
Academy of Sciences (MAS) then moves to
2700 block of North Charles Street in old
Homewood Hospital building, then temporarily occupied third oor of the Central Main
Branch (built 193133) of the Enoch Pratt
Free Library across the street at 400 Cathedral
Street (between West Franklin and Mulberry
Streets) from end of World War II to the early
1960s. MAS then returned to the observatory building (formerly housed Archdiocesan
Cathedral School) on 79 West Mulberry
Street, now renovated (between North Charles
and Cathedral Streets by Little/or North
Sharp Street alley next to John H.B. La-

22

3 19TH CENTURY
trobe's home at Number 11) in 1965. Under
the leadership of Herbert A. Wagner, President of local utility, Baltimore Gas and Electric Company, nally relocated with an expanded museum to the newly laid-out "Inner
Harbor" area on the southwest shore at Light
Street and Key Highway in June 1976 to a new
exhibit structure now known as the Maryland
Science Center and grew greatly afterwards in
audience visitorship, exhibitions and several
building expansions.[5]
Basilica, under construction since cornerstone
laying in 1806, consecrated May 31 by third
Archbishop of Baltimore Ambrose Marechal
as rst Roman Catholic cathedral built in
America, on new Cathedral Hill, in former
Howards Woods"/"Belvedere estate of Col.
John Eager Howard (17521827), at Cathedral Street between West Franklin and Mulberry Streets designed by famous architect
Benjamin Henry Latrobe (17641820). The
New Baltimore Cathedral replaced earlier St.
Peters Pro-Cathedral (former rst Catholic
parish church in Baltimore area) and rectory
with surrounding cemetery on West Saratoga
and North Charles Streets from 1770, made
Cathedral in 1790, (later razed 1842).

1822 Adelphi Theatre opens.[12]

1824
First building of The Athenaeum constructed at southwest corner of St. Paul
and East Lexington Streets, with cornerstone laying in August. Founded as a social/civic/cultural/educational hall and later
serves as site for classes/lectures/exhibitions
of the newly founded (1826) Maryland Institute For The Promotion Of The Mechanic
Arts two years later until burned by a panicked mob by the closing of the local early
Bank of Maryland in the infamous Baltimore
bank riot of 1835. Later relocated and rebuilt a block north in October 1847, with a
second building to the northwest corner of
East Saratoga and Saint Paul Street now facing Preston Gardens"/Saint Paul Place (terraced park constructed in 1920s along St.
Paul Street on ve square blocks running
north to south from East Centre down to
East Lexington Streets to the northside of
the 1896-1900 Baltimore City Circuit Courthouses [later renamed for national civil rights
leader Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr.). Structure
later housing the new Maryland Historical Society, (founded 1844), and subscription libraries of the Library Company of Baltimore,
(founded 1797) and also the Mercantile Li-

brary, (founded 1839) until collections were

combined in 1856. Later after MdHS relocated in 1919 to former Enoch Pratt mansion
at Park Avenue and West Monument Street,
the old second Athenaeum building served
as rst oces of the state Commissioner of
Motor Vehicles, with responsibility for registering new horseless carriages and licensing new drivers in 1918. Distinctive landmark historical structure unfortunately razed
after eighty years and replaced in the 1930s by
rst public parking garage in downtown, and
replaced later in in-1950s by a modernistic
blue/gray, glass/aluminum facade skyscraper
built for the Commercial Credit Company.[13]
The former youthful and energetic French
nobleman and ocer, who came across the
Ocean to oer his military services to the Patriot cause in the Continental Army during
the American Revolutionary War and aide to
General George Washington, the Marquis de
Lafayette, returns to America forty-one years
after the end of the War to tour various old battleelds and sites, stop at several major American towns and cities, and visit with the few
old comrades left living. After accepting an
invitation to visit from Baltimore authorities
in August, he is picked up in old Frenchtown
in Kent County at the northern head of the
Chesapeake Bay in October by the new 1818
steamboat United States commanded by a
Capt. Tripp and bearing the Citys welcoming committee to escort the old French ocer
and later American Revolutionary army General from Delaware and greeted on behalf of
the Governor of Maryland, Samuel Stevens,
Jr., (served 18221826), and steams down the
Bay to elaborate ceremonies and saluting ships
and boats in the harbor at Fort McHenry, and
joined by U.S. Secretary of State (and future
sixth President), John Quincy Adams, along
with heroes of the Revolution: Col. John Eager Howard, and of the War of 1812: Gen.
Samuel Smith, and Gen. John Stricker. Elder statesmen such as Charles Carroll of Carrollton, last surviving signer of the Declaration
of Independence, George Washington Custis
of Mount Vernon, Virginia, adopted grandson of the old commanding General and First
President, retired ocers and members of the
Society of the Cincinnati, and many other civic
dignitaries to review the state and local militia and Regular U.S. Army troops drawn up in
formation at the old now historic Fort, and exchange of speeches and addresses of welcome
and remembrance, followed by a banquet beneath the canvas tents outdoors. A parade
followed through the citys streets in an open

3.1

1800s1840s
carriage beneath several decorated historical
arches to the great rotunda of the domed
Merchants Exchange Building at South Gay
and East Lombard Streets, one of the largest
structures in America, where additional ceremonies and speeches were made recalling the
uniforms, clothes and 500 pairs of pantaloons,
the former ladies of the town, led by old Mrs.
David Poe made for his then ragged army, then
the old veteran is escorted to his lodgings at
the famous old colonial-era hostelry Fountain
Inn, at the southeast corner of East Baltimore
and St. Paul StreetLight Street, where outside
he reviews the various troops and units of military organizations. That evening there were
general illuminations and reworks, and attended a grand ball at the famous Holliday
Street Theatre. The following day he received
privately many visitors again at the Exchange
building, then greatly impressed, left the city
heading for the national capital at Washington
with a military escort.
Establishment of St. James African Protestant Episcopal Church in the city, third
oldest African-American (then called Negro"/"Colored) Protestant Episcopal Church,
(now Episcopal Church, U.S.A.) congregation
in the United States, and oldest south of the
Mason-Dixon Line. Parish is a member of
the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland and later
relocates to old west Baltimores Lafayette
Square neighborhood on Lafayette, Arlington
and Carrollton Avenues.

1825 Barnums City Hotel constructed in

Italianate architecture (with western rear addition
several decades later) at southwest corner of
North Calvert and East Fayette Streets across from
Battle Monument Square. Known for its excellent
cuisine, famous visitors and elegant hospitality.
Purported planning site of infamous "Baltimore
Plot" by Southern sympathizers to assassinate
President-elect Abraham Lincoln on his way to
his Washington inauguration in February 1861,
when changing trains in Baltimore. Lasts to 1889
when replaced by the Equitable Building, built
18911894, considered citys rst skyscraper.
Maryland General Assembly incorporates the
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company to the
amount of $500,000 dollars in capital, to
construct a waterway from Georgetown along
the north shore of the Potomac River to
Cumberland, Maryland of Allegheny County
in the western foothills of the Appalachian
Mountains. This follows the earlier vision of
General and rst President George Washingtons Potowmack Company canal enterprise
from the 1780s. Construction begins three

23
years later in competition with Baltimore City
interests represented by the new Baltimore
and Ohio Railroad, organized February 1827,
which follows, both breaking ground on same
day of Independence Day, July 4th, 1828.
Canal completed in 1850 but never achieves
economic prosperity or transportation impact
to the country such as the new nation-wide
rail system but still endures into the early 20th
Century and is now a nature and recreation
preserve as a national park, with its hiking and
biking trail.
1826 Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the
Mechanic Arts founded. Initially located at rst
Athenaeum, holding classes, lectures, exhibitions at
the civic, literary and social hall built at St. Paul
Street and East Lexington Street, which was burned
by a mob during 1835 Baltimore bank riot. Institute
temporarily moves classes and lectures to be held
at the Merchants Exchange on South Gay at German and East Lombard Streets for the next decade.
Landmark building later constructed in 1851 on East
Baltimore Street at Market Place/Harrison Street,
west bank of the Jones Falls with two towers/cupolas
at each end, the larger northern one holding a clock
and containing an assembly hall/classrooms on the
second oor above brick arches housing second public markethouse for Baltimore, now known as Centre Market (also known as Marsh Market for the
colonial-era Harrisons Marsh on this site) which
later burned in Great Baltimore Fire of 1904. College of Art later relocated by 1906 with Main
Building to Mount Royal Avenue in Mount Vernon, Baltimore-Belvedere neighborhood and a reconstructed College of Design on the second oor
in one of a revamped series of three market buildings along Jones Falls after the Fire, which endured
until the early 1980s, with construction of the Shot
Tower/Market Place Station for the Metro"/subway
and the terminus end ramp for the Jones Falls Expressway (Interstate 83) connecting with the President Street Boulevard.
Male members of the Jewish faith legally allowed to hold public oce in Maryland for the
rst time with passage of the long-time controversial "Jew Bill" by General Assembly of
Maryland. The Jew Bill altered Marylands
Test Act to allow members of the Jewish faith
to swear to a belief in the doctrine of reward
and punishment rather than the generally required declaration of belief in Christianity.
Mayor John Montgomery reports to the
Baltimore City Council of 10,000 houses now
located in Baltimore City of which: 101 are of
four stories or higher, 1,608 are three stories,
7,183 two stories, and 1,524 are one story
high.

24

3 19TH CENTURY

1827
Washington Medical College, second such institution in the state for medical education and
the training of doctors, (rst private), established on Washington Hill on Broadway at
East Fayette Street in East Baltimore where
later famed writer, poet and author Edgar Allan Poe (18091849), died October 1849, two
blocks south of future Maryland Hospital site
(later moved in 1873 to Catonsville in southwestern Baltimore County later renamed as
Spring Grove State Hospital), later designated
by will/bequest of Johns Hopkins, (1795
1873) to be used for establishment of his Johns
Hopkins Hospital in 1889. Later became
known as Church Home and Hospital with
Episcopal Church sponsorship. Absorbed
by Johns Hopkins Hospital further north on
Broadway in the 1990s. Another similarly
named Washington medical institution, later
located on northwest corner of North Calvert
and East Saratoga Streets, next to the famed
City Springs (central park block and water well with domed pavillon and rst memorial sculpture/monument to Lt. Col. George
Armistead, commander of Fort McHenry during British bombardment in 1814, which was
later removed after neglect and damage to
Federal Hill Park in the 1880s and reconstructed), was sponsored by the Washington
University in Pennsylvania (later known as
Washington and Jeerson College). 1880s
merger of this Washington University and the
College of Physicians and Surgeons absorbed
by nearby health dispensary established by
WMC doctors in 1872 and was later directed
and operated by the Roman Catholic order
of nuns/sisters, Sisters of Mercy invited from
Pittsburgh, since 1874 as the Baltimore City
Hospital (not to be confused with other institution of similar name for former colonialera Baltimore City and County Almshouse and
Work House, later located at Calverton, 1819
1866, then moved to eastern outskirts of town
and renamed Bay View Asylum, overlooking Eastern Avenue (later also Maryland Route
150) which by 1925 becomes a municipal general hospital complex known as Baltimore
City Hospitals [with plural 'S' as a municipal
institution]. Later taken over by and renamed
Johns Hopkins at Bay View Medical Center campus). Name of old B.C.H. on North
Calvert and East Saratoga Streets changed earlier in 1909 to Mercy Hospital, and again in the
1980s to Mercy Medical Center).
Franklin Lyceum active.[11]
Evan Thomas, brother of Philip E. Thomas

explains to meeting of prominent Baltimore

businessmen and civic activists at Belvidere
estate of famous old Revolutionary War Col.
John Eager Howard (17521827), of the old
"Maryland Line" about new British railroad
system he recently observed during trip to
the United Kingdom and how it could possibly compete with the new Erie Canal in New
York State and the proposed Chesapeake and
Ohio Canal along the Potomac River, from
Georgetown and Washington, D.C. to western Marylands Cumberland with access to the
passes through the eastern Appalachian Mountains to the Mid-West and Ohio River states
for maintaining Baltimores trade advantages.
Gentlemen resolve to form a company and
seek additional support.
Maryland General Assembly establishes and
incorporates a new British system of transportation (second oldest chartered railway to
that time earlier short line in Massachusetts
with "Quincy-Granite Railway Company" on
March 4, 1825, later extinct) on February
27 with the formation of the Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad Company, with the State holding 10,000 shares ($1 million), and the City
having 5,000 shares ($500,000), of a total capitalization of $3,000,000 of which during the
12 days of open books for shares eventually
amounted to $4,178,000 of the capital stock.
With temporary commissioners serving: Isaac
McKim, Thomas Ellicott, Joseph W. Patterson, John McKim, Jr., William Stewart, Talbot Jones, Roswell L. Colt, George Brown
and Evan Thomas who are authorized to accept subscriptions of $1,500,000 (by end of
1828, subscriptions in amount of $4,000,000
had been received). A Board of Directors of
the Citys leading nancial powers and citizens
are organized on April 28, 1827, consisting of
Charles Carroll of Carrollton, William Patterson, Robert Oliver, Alexander Brown, Isaac
McKim, William Lorman, George Homan,
Philip E. Thomas, John B. Morris, Thomas Ellicott, Talbot Jones and William Stewart; with
Thomas as rst President of Railroad Company and Brown as Treasurer.
Impressive funeral ceremonies held with procession for the death of Baltimores most important and inuential citizens, Col. John Eager Howard (17521827), former commander of the "Maryland Line" regiment of the
Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War, who led and fought in many battles both in the Northern and the Southern
Theatres of the War and who donated much
of the land in northern Baltimore Town for
various civic improvements and public build-

3.1

1800s1840s
ings from his Belvidere estate. His mansion was located in the intersection of future
North Calvert and East Chase Streets and endured until razed in the early 1870s. Much
of his estate was used to lay out the grid
of streets for the tomey Victorian-era neighborhood of Mount Vernon-Belvedere and further northwest into the Mount Royal area to
the bend of the Jones Falls, in which his
children and descendents were later responsible for developing. He notably is the namesake for the unusual number of three Baltimore streets. His name also endures in the
luxurious landmark Beaux Arts-style Hotel
Belvedere of 1903 on East Chase Streets o
North Charles Street with its famous John Eager Howard dining room with its wood paneling and historical wall murals and in an equestrian bronze statue on granite pedestal above
the Washington Monument at the north end
of Washington Place, facing north up North
Charles Street, and a modernistic metal sculpture in a small pocket park at the northwest corner of North Howard and West Centre
Streets, opposite the Chesapeake Commons
condo/apartment building, renovated in 1980
(formerly the old Baltimore City College built
1895, until 1928, later used by several other
schools such as Western High School).

1828 First Stone laid on July 4, ("Independence

Day"), for beginning of construction of the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad line (rst constructed
in America) laid by large assembly gathering including Charles Carroll of Carrollton (17371832), last
surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence
to initially run to Ellicotts Mills (now Ellicott City)
and later extended to Harpers Ferry and Wheeling,
Virginia by 1853 and eventually to Ohio by the
Civil War. At the same time, ground is broken
further southwest in Georgetown in the District of
Columbia for the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal by
sixth President John Quincy Adams, along the north
shore of the Potomac River.
Phoenix Shot Tower constructed of brick at
North Front and East Fayette Streets by the
Jones Falls eastern shore in Jonestown/Old
Town, used for dropping pellets of hot boiling lead into water vats at the ground level for
manufacture of shot ammunition for muskets
and ries. Tallest structure at the time built
in the city, along with two others, now razed.
Also previous site of rst meeting house for
Baptists met and constructed in 1770 (later
First Baptist Church of Baltimore on Liberty Heights Avenue). Tower image later
used in center of new illustration of Baltimore skyline on front-page masthead vignette

25
for daily newspaper The News American after
1964 merger of previous daily papers Baltimore News-Post and on Sunday The Baltimore American until closed by Hearst Corporation (founded by California and New York
magnate William Randolph Hearst) in 1986
after 113 years of publication.
Oblate Sisters of Providence founded.[14]
1829
As authorized by Act of the Maryland General Assembly three years before, Baltimore
City opens its rst public schools, under the supervision of a newly organized and appointed
Board of School Commissioners, two for boys
and two for girls (grammar or elementary
level) on each side of the town. Whites only
attend with only approximately three percent
of eligible children eventually in attendance in
the rst years. Additional primary schools for
upper grades added shortly with a high school
for boys founded by a decade later (The High
School, then the Male High School, later renamed the Central High School of Baltimore,
now The Baltimore City College in 1866, and
two Western and Eastern female secondary
schools in 1844.
Mount Clare Station for the new Baltimore
and Ohio Railroad replacing the rst downtown Pratt Street terminal/station at the southeast corner with South Charles Street, is built
further to the west on West Pratt Street o Arlington, Schroeder and Poppleton Streets in future neighborhoods of Mount Clare, Poppleton, Union Square. Over the decades it becomes the center of the railroads mechanical shops with an extensive group of sheds,
warehouses and shops including a massive 22sided roundhouse by the 1880s. Mount Clares
passenger station and oces are later supplemented and replaced in 1857 by the construction of the Camden Street Station (with two
wings later added in 1866) at West Camden
Street between South Howard, South Eutaw
and South Sharp Streets with extensive marshaling yards further southwest towards the
Middle Branch of the Patapsco River. Camden later became the headquarters oces of
the B. & O. (especially during the Civil War
era) until construction of a large downtown
Central Oce Building in the 1880s at the
northwest corner of East Baltimore at North
Calvert Streets which endured until destroyed
in the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904. Mount
Clare Station and the Roundhouse is later site
of the rst B. & O. Transportation Museum,
established 1954 as a public service by the
Railroad.

26

3 19TH CENTURY
Construction completed for the new George
Washington Monument with cornerstone laid
earlier on July 4 in 1815 originally in the
old Courthouse Square downtown at North
Calvert, between East Lexington and Fayette
Streets, but was judged to be too tall for
that smaller square with the townhouses surrounding it, (later replaced by cornerstone
laying instead on rst anniversary of battle,
Defenders Day, September 12, 1815 for erection of shorter, smaller Battle Monument commemorating defenders against British attack
on Baltimore at Battle of North Point and
bombardment of Fort McHenry in recently
concluded War of 1812). Simplied and
clean-cut marble column by revised drawings and plans for Washington Monument site
was later moved to hill-top location, 100 feet
above sea-level, north of town and construction continues there in Howards Woods estate near Belvidere mansion of Col. John
Eager Howard (17521827), Revolutionary
War commander of local "Maryland Line"
troops of the Continental Army, (at intersection of East Chase Street and North Calvert
Street. Designed by noted new American architect Robert Mills (17811855), who also
later designs landmark row of Greek Revival
style matching townhouses called Waterloo
Row on west side of North Calvert Street,
two blocks east. Neighborhood surrounding Monument later becomes referred to as
Mount Vernon-Belvedere begins development
by Howards descendents and family beginning 1831, (several years after Monuments
completion by 1829), surrounding four simple park squares of grass and trees, surrounded
by iron fence, laid out named Mount Vernon Place (along East and West Monument
Street) and Washington Place (along North
Charles Street) of distinctive residential Greek
Revival and Georgian or Federal comparable
styles of townhouses, later augmented with
landmark churches and cultural institutions.
Circus building constructed.[5]

1830 Baltimore and Ohio Railroad begins operating with horse-car line on tracks laid initially to
Ellicotts Mills (later Ellicott City). Famous race
run between Tom Thomb steam engine locomotive and horse car designed by inventor and industrialist Peter Cooper. Construction also begins on
initial eldstone and slabs for viaducts and bridges
along main route beginning with Carrollton across
the Gwynns Falls stream (runs through western Baltimore to the Middle Branch/Ridgleys Cove of the
Patapsco River), Thomas Viaduct's curving arches
across upper western branch of Patapsco River and

further north with Patterson Viaduct at Ilchester

and Oliver Viaduct across Patapsco again at Ellicott
Mills.
Construction of residence of Archbishop of
Baltimore at eastern end of cathedral facing
North Charles Street, using similar granite
blocks as the cathedral and stucco.
Establishment of St. Charles College, a preseminary on lands donated by Charles Carroll of Carrollton (17371832), from the extensive landed estate in western Anne Arundel
County, (now Howard County) near Carroll
mansion Doughoregan Manor. Construction
begins the following year and proceeds slowly
with rst structure completed by 1848. Later
after re, college is moved to area between
future Arbutus and Catonsville in southwest
Baltimore County, facing Wilkens Avenue,
Frederick Road and Maiden Choice Lane.
1831 In September, the Anti-Masonic Party, a
recent splinter group has the rst national political convention to nominate an American president,
meeting at the rst civic structure known as The
Athenaeum at St. Paul and Lexington Streets. They
choose Baltimore lawyer William Wirt for the oce
of chief executive in the Election of 1832 on the issue of the Masons secrecy and that seventh President Andrew Jackson is a Mason. Another antiJackson political party the National Republicans
(the party of former sixth President John Quincy
Adams) also meet in the same building later in December and choose Henry Clay of Kentucky to oppose Jacksons reelection. Finally, the following
May 1832, the newly renamed Democrats (old Jeffersonian Republicans) meet at the old First Universalist Church (later occupied after the 1860s by
black Roman Catholic congregation until razed in
the 1930s) at North Calvert and East Pleasant Streets
to give the city a clean sweep of all the rst nominating conventions putting forward the name of
Martin van Buren of New York for Vice President
to join Jackson for another term, replacing former
South Carolina senator John C. Calhoun who had
become estranged from Old Hickory and the inuence of northern Democrats.
Maryland General Assembly appropriates
funds to establish a House of Refuge for Baltimore City for criminal, vagrant or abandoned and neglected children, but because of
political controversies between Whigs and
Democrats, city does not build and open facility until eighteen years later, 1849. Later
becomes known as Maryland Training School
for Boys, and later renamed as XXXX. Relocated to XXX.

3.1

1800s1840s
Baltimore Association of Firemen organized
by several of the various independent volunteer re-ghting companies, since establishment of the rst company Mechanical in
1763. Later forms loose private confederation
of companies to organize re-ghting work in
1834 known as Baltimore City United Fire
Department, with seven representatives from
each private independent company plus one
representative serving as a standing committee. This quasi-public organization serves for
organizing city re prevention and ghting until organization of a fully paid, full-time professional force of remen housed in municipal numbered rehouses, establishing todays
modern Baltimore City Fire Department in
1858, (just a year after reorganization of the
city police force from 1784).

1832
Cholera epidemic rages in the city and causes
widespread evacuations of well-to-do and
those with transportation.[5]
1832 Democratic National Convention held
in May at The Athenaeum (the rst) at
St. Paul and East Lexington Streets (west
of City/County Courthouse-later burned in
Baltimore bank riot of 1835) and later at
Warelds Church (old First Universalist
Church? at North Calvert and East Pleasant
Streets) in Baltimore. U.S. Secretary of State
Martin Van Buren of New York nominated as
Vice President along with Seventh President
Andrew Jackson to succeed/replace incumbent John C. Calhoun of South Carolina who
had a falling out with Jackson over nullication
crisis.
1833
Three discerning gentlemen meet at the home
of John H. B. Latrobe (distinguished civic
leader, intellectual, author and son of famed
architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe at 11 West
Mulberry (between North Charles and Cathedral Streets) in the back parlor around table,
fortied with some old wine and some good
cigars with noted author and political leader
John Pendleton Kennedy and James H. Miller
poring over manuscript submissions in a literary contest sponsored by the Baltimore Sunday Visitor for best prose tale. A story entitled MS Found in a Bottle, is a curious
and haunting tale of annihilation and attracts
them all. The $50 prize is awarded to the
storys struggling, unknown, penniless author
Edgar Allan Poe, who had come to Baltimore
in the Spring of 1831, after dismissal from

27
the U.S. Military Academy at West Point with
no money, no trade and no reputation. The
four years he spends in Baltimore are a period of intense creativity. His major eort
during those years were 16 tales he writes for
the Folio Club, an imaginary literary society, one of these is MS Found In A Bottle.
The prize for this story, the public recognition that it brought and the lifelong friendship
between Poe and his literary patron Kennedy
helped direct Poe on his brilllant career. While
here, he lived briey at a small rowhouse on
Amity Street (now a city historic house museum) o West Lombard Street in inner West
Baltimore. He left Baltimore in 1835 to become editor of the Southern Literary Messenger. He returned in October 1849, supposedly
passing through the city during an upheaval
and tumult of a political election time, where
under mysterious circumstances, he was found
unconscious outside a tavern on East Lombard
Street in Jonestown/Old Town and died several
days later at the old Washington University
Hospital (now Church Home and Hospital on
Broadway at East Fayette Street) and was later
buried at the old Western Burying Grounds
of the First Presbyterian Church's cemetery
on North Greene and West Fayette Streets by
the intervention of a relative, Neilson Poe in
an undistinguished plot in the far southeastern corner of the yard. Later by 1852, the
cemetery was surmounted by the brick and
stone arches supporting the new above structure of the Westminster Presbyterian Church,
later part of the University of Maryland Law
School campus after the dissolution of the
congregation in the 1970s. Poes plot was
exhumed and relocated to the more prominent northwestern corner by the entrance gate
with a new substantial monument and bronze
medallion provided for by fund-raising by professors/teachers and students of the Baltimore
City high schools and several literary-minded
citizens after 1865, which was dedicated in
1875.
1834 Two new municipal markets are ordered
established by the Jacksonian-dominated City
Council and permission is granted by the State Legislature to levy special direct taxes to defray their
cost.
1835
1835 Democratic National Convention convened in city in May at the Georgian/Federal
style of architecture in landmark church of the
First Presbyterian Church with its twin spires
on the northwest corner of East Fayette and

28

3 19TH CENTURY
North (later Guilford Avenue) Streets. They
nominate incumbent Vice President Martin
van Buren of New York as the new President
to succeed Seventh President Andrew Jackson
after the 1836 presidential election, with Col.
Richard M. Johnson as Vice President.
Bank riot. Several homes and businesses ransacked including home of inuential U.S. Senator, Reverdy Johnson at Battle Monument
Square (northwest corner of North Calvert
Street and East Fayette Street and several other
prominent businessmen and stockholders in
the tottering Bank of Maryland scandal. Also
burns the landmark civic, literary and social
activities center The Athenaeum (the rst)
at southwest corner of St. Paul and East Lexington Streets, which also housed at the time,
the nine-year-old Maryland Institute
Baltimore County/City Courthouse of 1805
1809, (fourth for County and second in Baltimore City, then serving also as county seat),
burned and ruined in disastrous re at southwest corner of North Calvert Street and East
Lexington Street, across from the 18151827
Battle Monument. Rebuilt on same site, at
cost of along with $80,000 of twenty-year,
5% bonds sold to nance addition of reproof masonry Records Oce, both designed
by local noted architect Robert Cary Long,
Jr., west of the rebuilt courthouse at southeast corner of St. Paul and East Lexington.
Records masonry building designed of then
unusual Egyptian Revival architecture with
great front iron doors (or some say a "Mayan
temple), has cornerstone laid June 28, 1836,
by Solomon Etting, president of commissioners, Mayor Samuel Smith and the long-serving
Chief Justice of the United States, in the person of Roger B. Taney, formerly of Frederick,
Baltimore, and now Washington, D.C.. Completed by 1839.
Thomas Viaduct of the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad completed with its curving 22 arches
across the upper Western Branch of the
Patapsco River (near present-day Patapsco
Valley State Park), longest such structure in
the world, still used into the 21st century for
heavier freight and passenger trains on a constant daily basis. Obelisk monument of white
marble erected at trackside with engravings of
Railroad Company ocers and construction
leaders at eastern end of bridge before 'Y' intersection marking Main Line which went
further west towards Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, the Potomac River, Appalachian Mountains and Ohio and the Washington Branch
going 30 miles further southwest to the National Capital of Washington, D.C. Later also

site of old Victorian style Viaduct Hotel as resort and tourist site during the mid-19th century, a mile south of Relay or Relay Junction) also with small hotel and boarding house
there. Site occupied immediately in April
May, 1861 to hold Washington with Maryland
and Baltimore in the Union by Massachusetts
state militia Gen. Benjamin F. Butler after
the notorious Pratt Street Riots April 19,
1861 and later fortied during Civil War by
Bouquets and Cooks Battery of Union Army
troops with artillery on surrounding heights.
1836 Baptists organize the Maryland Baptist
Union Association (future Baptist Convention of
Maryland/Delaware) with six original congregations
represented, including the First Baptist Church of
Baltimore, founded 1773. Later joins with national conservative-leaning (but white/Caucasiandominated) Southern Baptist Convention.
Pastor Henry Scheib of Old Zion Lutheran
Church opens bi-lingual German/English
school at the church on North Gay and
East Lexington Streets which becomes very
inuential in the following decades, especially among the growing German-American
community.
Surviving soldiers stationed at Fort McHenry
during British attack in 1814 convene a meeting on September 13, the day after the local
city, county and state holiday of Defenders
Day (traditional said to be at a tavern adjacent to the fort) under the leadership of
William Steuart and Sheppard Leakin vowing never to disband and to meet every year
at the Fort, forming a corps and Society in
which they would assume the rank of service
each held during the battle. Later an organization for the veterans of the Battle of North
Point known as The Surviving Defenders of
Baltimore in the Late War (also sometimes
known as The Surviving Defenders of Baltimore in 1814) formed in 1841, incorporated
the following year as The Association of the
Defenders of Baltimore in 1814, for annual
reunions near September 12-13-14th, including parades, commemorative ceremonies, dinners, church services and business meetings.
With advent of rail travel, Old Defenders
make excursions to other East Coast cities, and
national patriotic events such as presidential
inagurations and burials. By 1857, sons and
descendents along with daughters of veterans
organize. By 1893-1894, a General Society
of the War of 1812 is organized nation-wide
with Marylanders and Baltimoreans forming a
chapter.

3.1

1800s1840s

1837
"The Sun" newspaper begins daily publication
by A. S. Abell (1806-1888), with William
Swain and others from Philadelphia, where
they had earlier started the Philadelphia Daily
Times with a policy of reporting news fairly
without an association or bearing on a political party or certain view. Also sold at a much
cheaper price of one penny whereas others are
being sold at around six cents. Continues publishing for next 177 years, later under the name
of A.S. Abell and Company.[3]
Washington Hall opens.[12]
Orchard Street Church built o St. Marys
Street in northwest section of old City (modern
Seton Hill historic district, near present-day
Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard). First congregation for Negroes/Afro-Americans in city,
later becomes part of the United Methodist
Church. When congregation closes, building restored and renovated for local branch of
National Urban League, a national Civil Rights
Movement organization.
1838
Future abolitionist, author/editor, orator, Federal ocial and escaped slave Frederick
Douglass (18081895), escapes to freedom,
September 3, disguised as a foreign seamen,
hopping aboard on a Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad train a mile east of
temporary depot at President Street and Canton Avenue (later Fleet Street) along Canton
tracks, north of the Harbor and east of Fells
Point where he had formerly worked as a slave
being a ships caulker. Travels to New York
City to home of noted abolitionist David Ruggles, later meeting future wife Anne Murray, a
free black woman, who had smuggled identication documents and relevant papers for him
to carry.
Hollins Market is established for citizens in
the growing west and southwest areas of the
city between West Pratt and West Baltimore
Streets, and Hollins Street. Named for local
Hollins land-owning family. Constructed of
two stories of brick in Italianate style with a
small cupola (later removed) and an assembly hall/auditorium and smaller class or meeting rooms upstairs on second level with brick
arches below on ground level for market and
proprietors stalls. Additional wooden shed
with open sides extends to the east for one
city block. Nearby is laid out small park of
Union Square and surrounding old West Baltimore neighborhoods of Poppleton and Mount

29
Clare (with neighboring B. & O. Railroad
foundries at Mount Clare Shops named for
historic Mount Clare Mansion now in Carroll
Park). Citys markethouses system grows to
total eleven by mid-20th Century 1950. By
the 21st Century, Hollins is one of six surviving municipal markethouses operated by the
citys oce of the Comptroller, and the oldest
surviving structure with its two oors and upper assembly hall and rooms (others damaged
by re at various times and rebuilt in more
modern styles).
1839
The High School for young men authorized
by City Council in March, opens in October (later named The Male High School of
Baltimore, then the Central High School of
Baltimore, nally in 1866 to The Baltimore
City College) authorized by City Council of
Baltimore in March, opens in October in
rowhouse on Courtland Street (now Saint
Paul Place/Preston Gardens) at East Saratoga
Streets.
Mercantile Library Association established.
Later joins with older Library Company of
Baltimore and Maryland Historical Society at
second Athenaeum building at northwest corner of St. Paul Street and East Saratoga Street,
until library collections are merged in the late
1850s. Society occupied Athenaeum until
1919 when it moves to the old Enoch Pratt
(18081896), Mansion at southwest corner of
West Monument Street and Park Avenue after
the death of Pratts widow.[6]
Green Mount Cemetery dedicated and opened
July 13, as a new style of landscaped parklike terrain for the later interment of Baltimores notables. Developed from late estate
of Robert Oliver, local prominent citizen and
merchant, under authorization and incorporation by Maryland General Assembly in March
1838, by local proprietors William Gwynn,
Robert Morgan Gibbes, Fielding Lucas, jr.,
John S. Skinner, John S. Latte, Samuel D.
Walker and John H. B. Latrobe (son of famous
architect, Benjamin Henry Latrobe). Laid
out behind surrounding eldstone wall along
southeastern area of later Greenmount Avenue (leading to Old York Road) and Boundary (later East North) Avenue. Cemetery designed by local architect Robert Cary Long, Jr.
with turreted gatehouse constructed one to two
years later, followed by Gothic Revival hill-top
chapel, fteen years later. Surrounding community in East Baltimore covered with straight
gridlines of streets with uniform 2 or 3-story
rowhouses acquires name of Oliver.

30

3 19TH CENTURY
City Council under the inuence of the
Whigs abolishes the oce of Consulting
Physician and stipulates that one of the three
commissioners of health appointed annually
must be a physician and assume the duties of
consulting physician.
New Municipal Record Oce of Baltimore
completed, built of distinctive Egyptian Revival architecture in masonry, brick and iron
with the then current standards of re-proof
construction, along Saint Paul Street at southeast corner with East Fayette Street, just to
the west of second Baltimore City and County
Courthouse of 1805, reconstructed after 1835
re.
Impressive elaborate funeral ceremonies and
processions held for The Defender of Baltimore, Maj. General Samuel Smith (1752
1839), with notables such as several mayors of
Baltimore, governors of Maryland, and Martin Van Buren, eighth President of the United
States, along with thousands of citizens following in his funeral cortege. General Smith
was also noted for his defense of Fort Mifin in the Delaware River, below Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania during the American Revolution,
and assuming command of the defenses of
the city as head of the Maryland State Militia after the American rout at the Battle of
Bladensburg and the Burning of Washington
under Gen. William Winder, the month before in August 1814. He foresaw the obvious possibilities of a British invasion and the
possible routes they would have to take and
planned fortications, traps and assigned units
of troops and artillery to various points (anticipating the landings and Battle of North Point,
nally drafting thousands of black and white,
rich and poor citizens of Baltimore to digging
trenches and placing over a hundred artillery
pieces along Hampstead Hill (also known
then as Loudenschlagers Hill in present day
Patterson Park) along the eastern edge of the
town. He also supervised regular U.S. Army
troops under Maj. George Armistead, commander at Fort McHenry and naval Commodore John Rodgers (formerly of Perryville,
Maryland) and Oliver Hazard Perry, late of his
victory at Lake Erie with various detachments
of seamen and naval artillery.

1840 Madison Lyceum active.[11]

The Democratic Party reconvenes again in
The Monumental City along with the new
Whig Party. The Whigs assemble at the
Universalist Church at Calvert and Pleasant

Streets and choose Henry Clay to be their

standard-bearer. Democrats return to meet at
the Music Hall to nominate eighth President
Martin van Buren for a second term. The Canton Race Track, outside the east side of the
city, is rented by the Whigs, oering generous libations of hard cider to invite Baltimore citizens to hear Henry Clay, Daniel
Webster and other famed orator politicians of
the era praise their candidate: William Henry
Harrison of Indiana (former general, territorial and state governor and Indian ghter)
with their famed slogan of Tippicanoe and
Tyler Too!" now joined with John Tyler of
Virginia as Vice President. Both went on
to win the Election of 1844, the following
November, but the aged Harrison (ninth president) died in April 1841, several weeks after
giving the longest inaugural address in American history and Tyler now succeeds him as
tenth president.
Establishment of the Library Company of
the Baltimore Bar by sixty-three lawyers (one
third of the citys bar at the time) at meeting called in March by promoted by noted
attorney and future Mayor George William
Brown (18201890), scion of famous banking rm after inspiration from several other
northeastern cities. Located at rst in several cramped rooms on second oor of second Baltimore City and County Courthouse at
southwestern corner of North Calvert and East
Lexington Streets, opposite Battle Monument
Square. One of Americas earliest private subscription libraries and legal/historical collections, and led by many noted attorneys and
judges of Baltimore and Maryland. After construction of third City Courthouse (later renamed Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr. City Courthouse in 1985) in 18951900, on entire block
of previous courthouse, Bar Library relocated
to 6th and 5th Floors at west end overlooking St. Paul Street/Place and Preston Gardens
(of the 1920s) with impressive barrel-vaulted
reading room, with many oil paintings of signicant gures in the history of the citys legal and judicial profession among luxurious
Victorian-style appointments.
1844
Maryland Historical Society incorporated as
one of the rst historical heritage societies in
America, led by many leading civic and intellectual citizens of the town. Later locates
at the second landmark Athenaeum building
(which had replaced earlier rst Athenaeum
one block south at St. Paul and East Lexington Street burned by mobs during 1835

3.1

1800s1840s
Baltimore bank riot) on the northwest corner
of Saint Paul Street at East Saratoga Street,
until 1919, when the MdHS moves to the former Enoch Pratt's 1847 town mansion at West
Monument Street and Park Avenue, where it
presently now occupies the entire square block
of adjacent older and newly constructed buildings. The Athenaeum was designed by noted
architect Robert Cary Long, Jr., just downhill from Old St. Pauls Episcopal Church.
Shared one of three oors with the old Library Company of Baltimore (founded 1796
1797) and "Mercantile Library Association"
(founded later in 1839) which were previously located in 1798 Old Assembly-Rooms,
a landmark social, dancing and civic hall at
northeast corner of East Fayette and Holliday Streets- which also later served as The
Male High School"/later Central High School
of Baltimore since 1843).
Western High School and Eastern High School
open for young women in opposite sides of
the city. The previous all-boys High School,
founded 1839, is eventually renamed The
Male High School and eventually Central
High School of Baltimore.
1844 Democratic National Convention assembles at the rst old English Tudor/Gothic Revival style of the Odd Fellows Hall on east side
of North Gay Street (between East Fayette and
East Lexington Streets) by Old Zion Lutheran
Church and become deadlocked between candidates John Tyler of Virginia who is in favor
of annexing the new Republic of Texas to the
Union and XXXX
1844 Whig National Convention is also held in
Baltimore at the old First Universalist Church
(sometimes called Warelds Church) at
North Calvert and East Pleasant Streets,
choosing Henry Clay of Kentucky as their
standard-bearer.
Baltimore-Washington telegraph line constructed under supervision of inventor Samuel
Morse. First telegraph message sent asking
What Hath God Wrought?!" by wires between the old original Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad station on southeast corner of East
Pratt snd South Charles Streets along the B.
& O. Railroad line of their Main Branch to
Relay Junction then switching to along the
Washington Branch, southeast to the National Capital to the receiving station set up
at the U.S. Capitol. Later the The Sun of
Baltimore becomes the rst newspaper to extensively use telegraphed dispatches from the
distant battles in the far southwest of the
MexicanAmerican War of 184647.

31
1845 Newton University established in 200 block
of north side along East Lexington Street between North Calvert and North (later Guilford Avenue) Streets for African-Americans and coordinated with later Douglass Institute of 1865 on
near-by East Saratoga Street in post-Civil War and
Reconstruction era.[15]
Calvert Hall College, a boys Roman Catholic
high school founded by religious order of
Christian School Brothers on West Saratoga
Street near Liberty Street. Later relocates
a block north from 1890 to 1960, across
from old Baltimore Cathedral/Basilica of the
Assumption at southwest corner, Cathedral
and West Mulberry Streets (present site of
Archdiocesan oce building/"Catholic Center from 1963), then moves to LaSalle Road
in suburban Towson, north of the city. Longtime athletic and academic rival of later
Jesuits' school at Loyola High School, founded
1852, then four blocks northeast on North
Calvert at East Madison Streets.
Lloyd Street Synagogue building in Greek Revival style designed by famed local architect
Robert Cary Long, Jr. for the new Baltimore
Hebrew Congregation at Lloyd and Watson
Streets (between East Baltimore and Lombard Streets), in Jonestown/Old Town neighborhood of inner East Baltimore. First synagogue in the city and oldest remaining now in
America in this area which is becoming heavily Jewish population beginning in the 1830s.
(Later 1985 site for the Jewish Museum of
Maryland).
1846 Recently founded local newspaper The Sun
sets technological advancement with use of Samuel
Morse's new telegraph machine and wire lines to
carry dispatches and news from events of the distant
MexicanAmerican War. Baltimore regiments participate in the campaigns and their actions quickly
reported back to citys citizens and relatives. Later
statue of military commander and memorial to soldiers and ocers erected at Mount Royal Avenue
and West Lanvale Street in 1903 by new Main Building of Maryland Institute College of Art and later
moved in the 1930s to entrance gates to Druid Hill
Park at West North Avenue and Mount Royal Avenues (William H. Watson Memorial Statue).
1847 The Sun of Baltimore becomes the rst paper in the Spring of 1847, to telegraph news of the
fall of Vera Cruz on the east Gulf coast of Mexico to
President James K. Polk at the Executive Mansion
(later White House) in Washington, D.C.. Nation
surprised at the speed of the news and the capabilities with the potential impact of the new telegraph

32

3 19TH CENTURY
for the spread of information, news over great distances.
Second Athenaeum building constructed at
northwest corner of St. Paul Street (later also
St. Paul Place) at East Saratoga Street, with
cornerstone laid in August. Replaces earlier
rst Athenaeum structure at southwest corner of St. Paul and East Lexington Streets,
one block further south, which was burned by
a mob in the Baltimore bank riot of 1835.
Later holds spaces for the newly organized
Maryland Historical Society (1844), the Library Company of Baltimore (founded 1796
1797) previously located at old Assembly
Rooms [of Baltimore Dancing Assembly] at
northeast corner of Holliday and East Fayette
Streets, [later occupied by the Central High
School of Baltimore, [todays Baltimore City
College]), and the Mercantile Library Association, (founded 1839).

1848
Construction begins on new island fortress of
3.4 acres in the lower Patapsco River named
"Fort Carroll" under supervision of Capt.
(later Colonel) Robert E. Lee of the United
States Army, Corps of Engineers. With brick
walls 10 feet thick and forty feet high, the three
planned levels (with many courses (rows) of
millions of bricks and masonry) are planned
to have embrasures set for 350 naval cannons.
Part of the new second tier of seacoast defensive fortication systems after the experiences of the War of 1812 and Fort McHenry of
the rst tier system from the Revolutionary
War period and afterwards. Similar to the
more later famous Fort Sumter in Charleston
harbor, South Carolina, which began the Civil
War in April 1861. Additional concrete fortications emplaced on eastern bastions in
mid-1890s for newer Endicott displacing ried artillery for Spanish-American War-era,
matching similar larger forts/batteries at opposing points along the lower Patapsco River
and harbor entrance of Fort Howard (North
Point)and Fort Armistead (at Hawkins Point).
Occupied as an increasingly obsolete military
site from World War I until World War II,
the ruins still exist today, with occasional eccentric plans occasionally proposed for civilian
use of the island fort.
Howard Athenaeum and Gallery of Arts
opens.[12]
Olympic Theatre opens.[12]
Concordia Club founded.

1848 Democratic National Convention held

in city to nominate presidential and vicepresidential candidates.
1849
Baltimore Female College established and
opens following year on Saint Paul Street
near East Saratoga Street and later moves
by about 1873 to northwest corner of Park
Avenue/Place near Wilson Street for about
a decade in new northwestern neighborhood
of Bolton Hill, under leadership of noted
Classical and Latin/Greek scholar, President/Professor Nathan C. Brooks. B.F.C.,
sponsored and supported by congregations and
ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church
had additional wings constructed to its rear by
1858 when located in large Greek Revival style
townhouse/mansion. Later the College moved
to a third site at Park Avenue and McMechen
Street where it held classes until closing in
1890. Prof. Brooks had also been the former rst principal in 1839 to 1849 of rst public secondary school in Maryland (and thought
to be later, third oldest public high school
in America) The High School, then on
neighboring Courtland Street, later renamed
the Male High School after 1844, then Central High School of Baltimore in 1850, then
The Baltimore City College after 1866. Sponsored by Methodist Episcopal churches in the
city, this small but inuential school for young
ladies is the rst to grant collegiate degrees
to women in Maryland, it predates the later
Womens College of Baltimore (later renamed
as Goucher College) founded in 1885, also
for young women (by Rev. John F. Goucher,
pastor and members of the First Methodist
Episcopal Church (previously Lovely Lane
Methodist Chapel/Meeting House and later returned to original colonial name of Lovely
Lane United Methodist Church, a block north
at St. Paul and 23rd Streets in Charles Village).[15]
Organizing of rst organization for teachers
and (high school) professors in the Baltimore
City Public Schools as the Public School
Teachers Association, Inc. of Baltimore.
Later evolves into rst teachers union for city
school faculties and joins national group, the
National Education Association (NEA), later
organizing of Maryland State Teachers Association.
Establishment of the House of Refuge on hill
north of and overlooking the Frederick Road
(National Road), west of Gwynns Falls in
southwestern Baltimore City, building completed and opened December 5 in 1855, (later

3.2

1850s1890s
location after 1971 of Southwestern High
School). Attended by children, ages four to
seventeen, with a new progressive philosophy to reform and not punish. Duties assigned such as shoemaking, chair caning and
sewing. Built of substantial stone and surrounded by a sixteen foot wall, it however
was not prison-like in appearance according
to historical accounts. Previously authorized
by Maryland General Assembly eighteen years
earlier in 1831, and funds appropriated, but
city administration of the time does not aid
the project, because of controversy between
then political parties about governments social roles (Whigs versus Democrats).
Established under newer national social consciousness movement for children convicted
of criminal oenses, those committed as vagrants or street beggars, those whose parents asked for their admission for incorrigible habits or vicious conduct, and those whose
parents did not provide for them. Institution
later becomes known as the Maryland Training School for Boys, and later as XXX and relocates to XXX.
First American Prizeght Championship organized and fought February 7 between James
Ambrose, known as Yankee Sullivan (18111856), and Tom Young America Hyer
(1819-1864), on a cold wind-swept blu overlooking the western shore of the Chesapeake
Bay at Still Pond Heights on the northwest corner of Pooles Island, oshore from the mouth
of the Gunpowder River, northeast of the
city between Baltimore County and Harford
County. Arrangements were made to have the
ght outside the jurisdiction of the State and
City of New York, although there were police
patrols. Several Maryland government and political gures attended to watch the match for a
prize of $10,000. Hyer won and was given the
title of Champion of America in this very
early display of the future sport of boxing and
pugilism.

3.2

1850s1890s

1850
President Street Station built during previous
year at President and Fleet (previously Canton Avenue) Streets for Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad (P.W. & B.)
placed in operation in February, under supervision of chief engineer Isaac Ridgway
Trimble (later Confederate States Army general, noted at 1863s Battle of Gettysburg in

33
"Picketts Charge"), replacing earlier primitive P.W. & B. depot. Oldest surviving bigcity train station in America also with unique
Howe Truss roof-support system architecture. Site of First Bloodshed of Civil War
in Pratt Street Riot on Friday, April 19, 1861,
with attacks by mobs of southern sympathizers
against passing 6th Massachusetts Volunteer
State Militia regiment and escorting Washington Brigade of Pennsylvania state militia
from Philadelphia.
By authority of a resolution of the Baltimore
City Council, approved by the Mayor, the
Male High School (founded 1839, the third
oldest public high school in America), is ofcially renamed the Central High School of
Baltimore, (todays Baltimore City College),
to which it had been referred to already for
several years such as in the annual reports
of the Board of School Commissioners for
the Baltimore City Public Schools. Also, the
School Commissioners are empowered to confer on the graduates of their highest educational institution, testimonials in engrossed
certicates, signed by the President of the
Board, the Mayor of the City, with the seal
of the City attached, by the Board Committee
on the Central High School, and by the Principal/President and teachers of said school.
Greek Revival styled mansion/townhouse for
Thomas family designed by John Rudolph
Niernsee and James Crawford Neilson, architects. Constructed at southwest corner
of North Charles Street (south Washington
Place) and West Monument Street (West
Mount Vernon Place), on the circle opposite the Washington Monument, completed by
1852. Noted home of Thomas, then Jenck
families for a century and three-quarters, lastly
by Gladding family of former Chevrolet auto
dealership. Considered for possible use as ofcial Mayors Residence but later becomes
known as Hackerman House (donated by
philanthropist Willard Hackerman) and annex
for gallery of Asian Art in the early 1980s for
adjacent Walters Art Museum, further south.
Cornerstone laid by Governor of Maryland
Phillip F. Thomas on Oct. 21st for an obelisk
monument at East Monument and North Gay
Street in Ashland Square of Jonestown/Old
Town in east Baltimore under which the two
young volunteer soldiers Daniel Wells and
Henry McComas are to be reburied with
honors. A parade of militia and various
civic societies was led. Wells and McComas
of Aisquiths Sharpshooters are traditionally
credited with the sharpshooting death of Gen.
Robert Ross in command before the Battle of

34

3 19TH CENTURY
North Point on September 12h, 1814 during
the Battle of Baltimore with the British attack
in the War of 1812. An eloquent prayer was
given by Rev. Henry Slicer and an oration by
Col. B.U.Campbell occurred at length.

1851
According to the new provisions adopted by
the delegates to the constitutional convention for the second Maryland Constitution
(of 1851), approved by the voters, Baltimore City, which has been the county seat of
Baltimore County since 17671768, becomes
an independent city (with the same status as
the other 23 counties of Maryland) with additional, more proportional representation in the
General Assembly of Maryland and more abilities of home rule. City is separated from
surrounding Baltimore County on its east, west
and north sides, with Anne Arundel County remaining to its south, across the Western (upper
Patapsco) to the Middle and Ferry Branches of
the Patapsco River. Remaining county voters
elect by several referendums to move its new
county seat north to Towsontown in 1854, and
constructs new granite blocks County Courthouse of Greek Revival style with front portico and cupola facing Washington Avenue between Chesapeake and Pennsylvania Avenues.
New Assembly-Rooms dancing, social and
reception hall constructed and opens at South
Hanover and West Lombard Streets by old
Baltimore Dancing Assembly group to replace earlier 179798 famed Old AssemblyRooms structure previously at northeast corner of Holliday and Fayette Streets (now
Central High School of Baltimore since 1843
to re of 1873).[12]
Baltimore Wecker German language newspaper begins publication.
New Centre Market building constructed
on Market Place (formerly Harrison Street
named for Thomas Harrison of 18th Century Harrisons Marsh, nicknamed Marsh
Market), on west shore of Jones Falls between East Baltimore and Water Streets with
25-year-old school "Maryland Institute for
the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts" (original name) is located on upper second/third
oors set above brick/stone arches and piers
above the stalls of the market house. Two tall
clock towers constructed at each end, with the
larger one facing the Plaza on the south side towards the harbor. Large auditorum/assembly
hall with classrooms, lecture halls and oces
upstairs makes structure the center of education in the city. Site of many large assem-

blies, mass meetings and conventions in coming years, plus several large presidential nominating conventions in the next decade along
with a famous speech in April 1864 by President Abraham Lincoln. (Endures until Great
Baltimore Fire of February 1904).
First annual commencement exercises held
November 27 for ten graduates of the newly
renamed Central High School of Baltimore,
(todays Baltimore City College) at the old
Front Street Theatre, east of the Jones Falls,
between East Fayette and High Streets, in the
Jonestown/Old Town section. Two graduates
receiving the highest honors and eight being
granted qualied certicates. First high school
diplomas ever granted in Baltimore and Maryland.
Construction of second Athenaeum hall at
northwest corner of St. Paul Street and East
Saratoga Streets of three oors of Greek Revival style for $40,000 by Robert Cary Long,
Jr., as a gift from the citizens of Baltimore
to the Maryland Historical Society, founded
seven years before (1844). Building replaces
previous Athenaeum, two blocks south at St.
Paul and East Lexington, burned in Baltimore
bank riot of 1835. Other oors later to be used
by subscription libraries of the old Library
Company of Baltimore, founded 179697 and
the Mercantile Library Association, (of 1839),
which combine their collections here by 1856.
MdHS resides here until 1919 when it moves
several blocks northwest to the former Enoch
Pratt townhouse/mansion on West Monument
Street and Park Avenue in 1919. Numerous
meetings, lectures, visits and ceremonies held
here in the next three-quarters of a century.
By the 1920s, building is used by the new bureaucracy for cars, the state Commissioner of
Motor Vehicles (founded 1910) oces, then
unfortunately razed briey for a rst parking garage in the city, quickly later replaced
on site by an early 1950s glass skyscraper
for Commercial Credit Company. Site later
opened up by razing of neighboring facing
1820s-era Greek Revival styled townhouses
for the Citys rst urban renewal project of
ve square blocks along St. Paul Street and
later St. Paul Place and the old parallel Courtland Streets from East Centre to East Lexington for the terraced Preston Gardens, with
classical Greco- Roman carved stone railings
and staircases, ower beds, spouting fountains,
sidewalk ways and large shade trees.
Cornerstone for House of Refuge for wayward
youths in southwest outskirts of city on old
Frederick Road (National Road) at Gwynns

3.2

1850s1890s
Falls on Oct. 27th with Governor of Maryland Enoch Lowe and Chief Justice of the
United States, Roger B. Taney, with the Mayor
and City Council attending. Chartered earlier
in Feb. 1831 and documents revised 1859.
Site is later occupied in 1971 by Southwestern
High School.

1852
St.
Marys College, established by the
Sulpicians religious order in 1805 closes the
College, located on North Paca Street by St.
Marys Lane, adjacent to the Seminary, established 1791, and the landmark Chapel, which
had graduated many hundreds of young men
with secular educations during the rst half of
the 19th Century and was one of the most prosperous educational institutions in the City.
Loyola College and Loyola High School established by the Jesuits (Society of Jesus) in
several townhouses in the 100 block Holliday
Street by East Lexington (then Orange Alley)
and between East Fayette Streets. Just north
of famed Holliday Street Theatre (of 1794 and
1812), Prof Kapps School (where famous reporter/editor/author/columnist H.L. Mencken
attended in late 1880s) and the Central High
School of Baltimore, (future Baltimore City
College) at old former Assembly Rooms social and cultural hall. New Loyola Jesuits
schools in houses across street from future
Baltimore City Hall (soon to be built 1867
1875). Both College and High School later
in 1855 move several blocks north next to
St. Ignatius Church on North Calvert between
East Monument and East Madison Streets in
Mount Vernon-Belvedere neighborhood, completed by 1857. Later in 1923, the College
moves to suburban campus in northern city
at North Charles Street at West Cold Spring
Lane next to Evergreen House of Garrett family of Baltimore and Ohio Railroad fame and
the High School moves in 1934 to its present
Blakeeld campus, west of Towson in suburban Baltimore County.
Apollo Hall opens.[12]
1852 Democratic National Convention and
1852 Whig National Convention both met
in the city to nominate candidates for president and vice president. Democrats choose
Franklin Pierce (18041869), of New Hampshire, a "dark horse" unexpected candidate
for the Presidency with Senator William R.
King (17861853), of Alabama as Vice President. Whigs put forth former Maj. Gen.
and General-in-Chief of the United States
Army, Wineld Scott (17861866), of New

35
Jersey, and William A. Graham (18041875),
of North Carolina as his running mate. Pierce
is elected 14th President in the Fall elections.
1853 Baltimore City Police Department established. Succeeds earlier protective system from Baltimore Town of constables and night watchmen established since 1784. Later placed under authority
of Governor of Maryland after Know-Nothing Riot
of 1856 and political scandals of "Know-Nothing"
movement of the American Party in 185960, who
has the power to appoint the police marshal (later
chief or [after 1920] commissioner of police to the
1980s). Similar political movement inspired by City
Reform League for good government that also
eliminated various squabbling volunteer re companies dating back to the 1760s and formed professionalized municipal government agency, as the
Baltimore City Fire Department in 1859.
1854 Fire destroys Greek Revival styled third
church (designed in 18121817 by Robert Cary
Long, Jr., [1810-1849]), of Old St. Pauls Church
(Episcopal), oldest parish in Baltimore area, at
northeast corner of North Charles and East Saratoga
Streets. Replaced two years later by Italian Renaissance Revival architecture fourth structure, designed by Richard Upjohn (18021878), of New
York City. Six-story bell tower originally planned,
however never constructed. By the mid-20th century, the famous Mother Church of Baltimore is
surrounded by tall skyscrapers and a busy business
district, followed in 1950s-60s by redevelopment
Charles Center with its Charles Plaza across the
street to the west.
1856
Know-Nothings Riot of the American
Party with anti-immigrant extremists and political/historical ignorance groups manage to
fool voting citizens and take power with some
oces in city and state government.
1856 Whig National Convention held in Baltimore again at the Maryland Institute for
the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts hall
above Centre (Marsh) Market on East
Baltimore Street at Market Place (formerly
Harrison Street) to Water Street, by west
side of Jones Falls, to nominate its slate
of candidates for President and Vice President. Last major campaign eort of the
Whigs for national oces. Chosen were former 13th President Millard Fillmore (1800
1874), of New York and for the second
spot on the ticket, Andrew Donelson (1799
1871), of Tennessee.
Democrat James
Buchanan (17911868), former U.S. Secretary of State is elected as 15th President

36

3 19TH CENTURY
in the Fall elections, also over former Col.
John C. Frmont (18131890), (The Great
Pathnder), rst candidate of the newly organized Republican Party.
Construction of "Light Street Bridge from
Ferry Bar point in old South Baltimore,
southern end of Light Street across the Middle and Ferry Branches of Patapsco River
to the old Actons Amusement Park and
Cromwells Marsh (future Faireld, Masonville and East Brooklyn/Wagners Point
communities) and to newly established town
of Brooklyn from three years before in northern Anne Arundel County. Replaced old ferry
operated since colonial times forming connection to southbound road to state capital
at Annapolis. Sometimes known as Long
Bridge or Brooklyn Bridge, has length of
4,750 feet of wooden trestle on piles and has
expensively high toll charged by local County
land-owning families Crisp and Cromwell
which sties future residential and commercial development of northern county towns
Brooklyn and Curtis Bay for rst twenty-ve
years until city/state purchase in 1878. Light
Street Bridge which also later carries electric
streetcar line across, endures until 19141917
when replaced by current Hanover Street
Bridge, of concrete arches with draw span
built across narrows further to the west which
opens January 1917, (later renamed Vietnam
Veterans Memorial Bridge in the 1990s).

1857
World famous nancier and philanthropist
George Peabody (17951869), formerly of
Baltimore (18151835), later of New York
City, then London, England, suggests bequest to local civic and literary leaders to
found a Peabody Institute, with various cultural programs of art and sculpture collection, lecture series, reference library, musical
school and scholarship prizes to public school
graduates. Construction of building begins
at southeast corner of North Charles Street
(south Washington Place) and East Monument
Street (East Mount Vernon Place) opposite the
Washington Monument. Mostly completed by
1861, but is delayed by the Civil War until
dedication and opening the year after peace.
Today the nations second-oldest music conservatory with landmark Library and presently
a division since 1977 of the later 1876 bequest
from friend Johns Hopkins of The Johns Hopkins University.
New Maryland Club for socially elite men organized and incorporated the following year.

Located rst at old George Homan mansion

of Greek Revival styled architecture at northeast corner of Cathedral and West Franklin
Street, opposite the old Baltimore Cathedral. Later in 1890s moves several blocks
north in Vernon-Belvedere neighborhood to
present stone Romanesque Revival designed
clubhouse at North Charles and East Eager
Streets. Later becomes center hotbed of
Southern sympathizers in early days of Civil
War strife and riots in the city, threatened to
bombard building from Fort Federal Hill if
a Rebel ag ies by occupying Union militia
Gen. Benjamin F. Butler of Massachusetts
Militia.
1858 Inventor, railroad and shipbuilding industrialist Ross Winans, (17961877), builds and
launches revolutionary-styled steam-powered
cigar boat at Ferry Bar, southern point at
Middle or Ferry Branch of Patapsco River,
by old Light Street Bridge (also known as
Long Bridge or Brooklyn Bridge) of 1856,
mile-long wooden trestle on log pilings to
newly established Brooklyn town (1853) in
northern Anne Arundel County, Maryland,
on shores of former Cromwells Marsh.
Wealthy and talented Winans builds several
piers and wharves east of the bar/point area
along the Patapsco River, later known as
Winans Cove, at northern end of longtime ferry service since colonial days and experiments iron and steel-fabricated ships and
boats, o-shore and west from nearby remnants of War of 1812 earthen embankments of
Fort Covington, (and smaller Battery Babcock
to the east) still extant from September 1814
Battle of Baltimore. Site later becomes by late
1890s, "Port Covington", waterfront terminal
for old Western Maryland Railway, near south
shores of Whetstone Point peninsula. Old
Revolutionary War Fort Whetstone from
1775-1776, at eastern end, and later adjacent renamed Locust Point residential neighborhood and future Port of Baltimore facilities/terminals on northern and southern shores.
Additional foundries and shipyards in Cove,
developed for Southern rebels-sympathizing
Winans, a member of the Maryland House
of Delegates, arrested by Union Army forces
from on train from Frederick city AprilMay
1861 sessions (briey held in Fort McHenry)
to forestall his later possible assistance to
Confederate military forces with development of vaunted steam gun (early highpowered machine gun or "Gatling"-style gun
in 1861) and similarly wealthy and talented

3.2

1850s1890s
sons Thomas Dekoven Winans future Russian
railroad-building projects and industrial enterprises.
Holding of the eighth annual commencement
ceremonies for the Central High School of
Baltimore, (founded 1839, third oldest public high school in America, then at northeast
corner of Holliday and East Fayette Streets in
old Assembly Rooms dancing hall of 1796)
for 23 graduates at the upstairs auditorium of
the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of
the Mechanic Arts, above Centre (Marsh)
Market at East Baltimore Street and Harrison
Street/Market Place, east of the Jones Falls
(landmark recently completed 1851). First
time awarding of seven Peabody Prizes by
bequest from the founder of the new Peabody
Institute the previous year, now under construction across from the Washington Monument, internationally known nancier and
philanthropist George Peabody (17951869).
Prizes awarded by William E. Mayhew, Esq.,
rst President of the Board of Trustees, with
engrossed certicates, gold or bronze engraved
medals along with cash awards of three of
$100 and four of $50 to each honored graduate. Additional prizes also awarded to the
top graduates of the two female public high
schools (founded 1844), Eastern High School
and Western High School. Peabody Prizes
will be awarded annually for the next 130
years, with substantial public and media attention, then later replaced after controversy
by Peabody and Johns Hopkins University
trustees (P.I. merges with J.H.U. in 1977) with
scholarship programs for all top-ranked graduates of Baltimore City public high schools.
First steam re engine (horse-drawn) Alpha
arrives in the city, purchased by newly organizing Baltimore City Fire Department, May
18.

1859
City Fire Department formed as municipal
government agency with paid, professionally
trained remen. Replaces the old 1835 Baltimore City United Fire Department, a confederation system of about 17 independent private volunteer reghting companies in various districts and neighborhoods, dating back
to 1763. Engine House Number 6 facing
North Gay and Orleans Street with landmark
tall Italianate-styled bell tower is last volunteer company building built in the 1850s
and annexed into new city rehouse system.
Later becomes oldest B.C.F.D. rehouse and
in 1974, Baltimore City Fire Museum.

37
First line established of horse-drawn street rail
cars for faster and more reliable city transportation begins to replace older horse-drawn
omnibuses (street wagons). Helps in growing
additional rowhouse neighborhoods and rst
developnment of suburbs further out near
city limits. Later rst usage in America of
electrication powered systems of streetcars
by Baltimore in 1885 extends throughout city
by the mid 1890s.
1860
1860 Constitutional Union Convention, 1860
Democratic National Convention, Two political party presidential nominating conventions
held in Border City after break-up of regular convention of Democrats at Charleston,
in South Carolina session under threat of secession and civil war. Both U.S. Senator
Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois and John Bell
of Tennessee each nominated for Chief Executive in very controversial 1860 Presidential
Election.
Estimated that 90 percent of citys black population on the eve of the Civil War was free.
Druid Hill Park opened on northwest outskirts
of town on former Nicholas Rogers Druid
Hill colonial estate on western heights above
upper Jones Falls.
Reformers of local Democratic Party reassert
political control in state and city with support of new City Reform League with election of George William Brown as Mayor from
Know-Nothings of American Party and recent political and election turmoil and riots.
State assumes control of city police force
with Governor of Maryland having appointive
power of police marshal with George P. Kane
newly chosen.
1861 Unarmed Militia Units from Pottsville and
Schyulkill County of the Pennsylvania volunteer state militia travel by Northern Central Railroad from the state capital Harrisburg
to Marylands "Mason-Dixon Line" and arrive Thursday, April 18 at Bolton Station and
Calvert Street Station on way to answer newly
elected 16th President Abraham Lincoln's call
to the states for 75,000 volunteers and declares
a state of insurrection to subdue Southern rebellion, after the ring on Fort Sumter several
days previously in Charleston harbor, in seceding South Carolina by new elements of an organizing Confederate States Army. Joined by
two artillery regiments of Regular Army soldiers coming from the West heading for Fort

38

3 19TH CENTURY
McHenry, the Pennsylvania militiamen march
down Howard Street to Camden Street Station
to board the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad to
get to Washington. Because they are unarmed
(ries unloaded) they are jeered, hassled and
some assaulted with physical and verbal attacks by Southern sympathizers and the commanding ocers free black servant Nicholas
Biddle is injured, although no one is killed or
wounded. Later upon arriving in the National
Capital, greeted by the President and camping
in the halls of the U.S. Capitol, these units are
later known as The First Defenders. Baltimore mobs appetite for violence however is
only whetted for more the next infamous day,
Friday, the Nineteenth of April.
"Pratt Street Riot" on Friday, April 19
erupts when the Unions Sixth Massachusetts
Regiment of volunteer state militia (from
mostly mill towns of Lawrence and Lowell)
and Washington Brigade of Philadelphia
of Pennsylvania state militia, is attacked by
mobs of Southern sympathizers when making the required transfer on their railroad journeys from Philadelphia to Washington, attempt to transfer horse-drawn railroad cars
along East Pratt and President Streets waterfront from the Philadelphia, Wilmington and
Baltimore Railroad's President Street Station
to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Camden
Street Station. Four soldiers killed and many
wounded along with many uncounted Baltimoreans. New Police Marshal George P. Kane
and recently elected Reformer Mayor George
William Brown with escorts of city police with
pistols try to hold back rioters. Later city
ocials send militia units north and east of
the city to burn railroad bridges to forestall
any future transfer passages and in meeting
with Governor Thomas Hicks in Annapolis
and President Abraham Lincoln in Washington, D.C. request no further military passages
through city. Washington is isolated from the
North by cut telegraph lines for several weeks.
A month later, on May 14, Massachusetts
volunteer state militia and now Union General Benjamin F. Butler sends regiments from
Relay Junction southwest of city on B. &
O. Railroad (where the Main Line to the
West at the U.S. Arsenal at Harpers Ferry
on the Potomac River and further to Ohio
River divides from the Washington Branch
to national capital) in night expedition during
rainstorm to occupy city and fortify Federal
Hill, overlooking downtown harbor Basin
and declaring martial law the following day.
Baltimore is occupied by Union Army troops
manning surrounding earthen-bermed forts

quickly constructed for the duration of the

war to 1865. Additional Federal troops reinforce Fort McHenry and numerous members of the State Legislature, Mayor, (George
William Brown), City Council and Police
Marshal (George P. Kane), and other Board
of Police Commissioners are arrested and conned, such as industrialist Ross Winans and
politician John Merryman. Provost Marshal
for city appointed with local military ocer
Col. John Kenly and commands city police ofcers.
1863
Invasion fears threaten Baltimore authorities
in June as Confederate General Robert E. Lee
and his Army of Northern Virginia passes Baltimore on the west going through Frederick,
city placed under stricter martial law, additional militia called out, warships stationed in
the harbor, and barricades erected in westside streets. Later battle fought north at
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, largest battle of the
War and ever fought in North America.
Construction begun on stone Italianate style
of architecture mansion Cylburn with material quarried from Bare Hills, in Baltimore
County. Designing architect George A. Frederick (later plans for Baltimore City Hall in
18671875) on property located on Greenspring Avenue, west of Jones Falls hills, north
of Druid Hill Park built for Elisha Tyson,
industrialist, nancier and Quaker abolitionist and civic activist with project continuing
to 1888. Purchased by City in 1942 and
estate developed into botanical gardens and
arboretum as city park, named Cylburn Wildower Preserve and Garden Center, with
Horticulture Division of Bureau of Parks and
Maryland Ornithological Society headquarters, nature museum, mounted bird collections
and Fessenden herbarium. House and estate
placed on National Register of Historic Places.
Newly organized Union Club sets up on
northeast corner of East Franklin and North
Charles Street (opposite First Independent
Church of Baltimore later First Unitarian
Church (Unitarian and Universalist)), in former Greek Revival styled with stone portico/steps and columns of former William
Howard (son of Col. John Eager Howard)
mansion. Later becomes headquarters for
"Athenaeum Club" and temporary site in the
late 1870s for new Maryland State Normal
School, founded 1866 (later after several
name and location changes to Towson University). Competes with southern-sympathizing

3.2

1850s1890s
Maryland Club one block east by Cathedral Street.

1864
New Maryland state Constitutional Convention summoned and meets drawing up replacement document for previous charter of 1851
which is enacted ending slavery in Baltimore
and throughout the state along with providing for additional political, educational and social reforms for the new free black population,
which is later quite unpopular with the former white dominant Democratic Party power
structure.
St. Francis Xavier Church dedicated for
Black/Afro-American Roman Catholics at
North Calvert and East Pleasant Streets (to
1932).
President Abraham Lincoln travels by B. & O.
Railroad to now peaceful Baltimore to speak at
the llall of the 1851 landmark Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts
above Centre (Marsh) Market along Market Place/Harrison Street at East Baltimore
Street, by the west bank of Jones Falls to speak
to the Sanitary Fair' sponsored by the local
unit of the U.S. Sanitary Commission there
being held to raise funds for orphans, widows and wounded soldiers of the Union Army
on April 18. Gives a famous speech entitled
the Baltimore Address or Liberty Speech.
Stays overnight in friends brownstone mansion on Cathedral Street and West Mount Vernon Place, a block west of the Washington
Monument.
1864 Republican National Convention temporarily known as the National Union Party,
held in city nominates Abraham Lincoln for
a second term as president and adding former Democrat but loyalist of Andrew Johnson
(18081875), former U.S. Senator and War
Governor of Tennessee as Vice President to
replace previous incumbent Hannibal Hamlin
during Lincolns rst term.
1865 Concordia Opera House opens.[12]
Formation of Baltimore Association for the
Moral and Intellectual Improvement of Colored People by the Rev. John F. W. Ware
of the First Independent Church of Baltimore (later First Unitarian Church of Baltimore (Unitarian and Universalist) and many
freed slaves and freedman, setting up over 200
schools.
Establishment by Afro-American Baltimoreans of the Douglass Institute in honor of former resident and escaped slave, Frederick

39
Douglass near old Newton University founded
1840s, on south side of 200 block, East Lexington Street, between North Calvert, Davis
Street alley, and North Streets (now Guilford
Avenue). Later becomes forerunner for establishment by 1883 of the rst Colored High
School and Training School, which by 1925
is renamed Frederick Douglass High School.
1866 New Peabody Institute building dedicated with philanthropist millionaire donor George
Peabody (17951869), (formerly of Massachusetts,
briey Washington, and 20 years in Baltimore, now
of New York City and London, in England) standing
on front steps acknowledging the acclaim of thousands of Baltimore City Public Schools pupils gathered during elaborate dedication ceremonies held
in front of building at the Washington Monument
completed several years before in 1861 but delayed opening by the Civil War, and nine years after the original donation of $800,000. Constructed
of white marble, the rst section of one-third of
building, (west wing) of Institute building located on
southeast corner of North Charles Street and East
Monument Street, which is also South Washington Place at East Mount Vernon Place, across from
the landmark Washington Monument. Designed
by famous architect Edmund G. Lind of Classical
and early Beaux Arts style architecture, consists of
music hall/auditorium, art gallery and small library
space. Later second section, two-thirds of building,
(east wing), with space for elaborate tiered atrium
for future George Peabody Library, and more facilities, completed 12 years later by the same architect,
matched perfectly.
Authorized by Maryland General Assembly in
an act of 1865, providing for a uniform public school system to be established in each
of Marylands 23 counties, along with a state
department of education with a superintendent, and a teachers training institute. The
Maryland State Normal School opens January
15, under Professor and Principal McFadden
Alexander Newell in temporary quarters in
the old Red Mens Hall on North Paca Street,
with rst graduation ceremony that June. New
school soon moves to northeast corner of
North Charles Street and East Franklin Street
in former Greek Revival 1820s era mansion
of William Howard, son of Col. John Eager
Howard (17521827), which by the Civil War
became the Union Club, later the Athenaeum
Club. Later construction in 1875 of designated landmark building at northwest corner
of Carrollton and Lafayette Avenues with tall
corner clock tower, occupied February 1876.
Later relocates by 1915 to west side of York
Road with construction of buildings for ad-

40

3 19TH CENTURY
ministration (later Stephens Hall) and dormitories/dining hall (Newell Hall) in county seat
of Towson in suburban Baltimore County, becoming the Maryland State Teachers College
at Towson, then Towson State College, nally Towson University, second largest college/university in the state.ref name=brit1910
/>

1867
Concordia Hall is founded.
Centenary Biblical Institute founded by then
Negro or Colored (now African American) Baptists churches, later renamed as
Morgan State University, in honor of a former
president, then absorbed in 1939 by the state
becoming Morgan State College, nally by the
1990s as Morgan State University.
1870
African-Americans vote in Baltimore for the rst time
since 1810 with passage of Fifteenth Amendment to U.S.
Constitution. Mass meeting held at Battle Monument
Square at North Calvert, between East Lexington and
Fayette Streets to celebrate

Maryland Law Record weekly newspaper

founded to report on legal, real estate and business matters. Oce is located at 75 West
Fayette Street [old street numbering system],
J. L. Hanna editor. Later becomes The
Daily Record in 1888 to the 21st century,
owned by the Wareld Family.
Pimlico Race Course opens outside northwest
Baltimore.

1871 Fords Grand Opera-House opens on West

Fayette Street between North Howard and Eutaw
Streets, (owned by John T. Ford who also owned infamous (Fords Theatre) playhouse in Washington,
later becomes leading politician in city and member of parks board), Fords Opera House plays major productions from Broadway when owned in later
years by Morris A. Mechanic, (who later has new
modernistic theatre in Charles Center downtown redevelopment from 1958 to the early 1970s), and
lasts until 1964, replaced by the 2010s by Centerpoint apartment/condo/commercial building at
Howard and Fayette Streets.[12]
1872
1872 Democratic National Convention held
at the new year-old Fords Opera House
(owned/operated by the same John T. Ford of
the infamous Fords Theatre in Washington,

D.C. where 16th President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in April 1865) on West
Fayette Street (between North Howard and
Eutaw Street) and nominates "New York Tribune" newspaper publisher Horace Greeley,
(1811-1872), as the choice of the Democratic
Party for the presidency of the United States.
XXXX later nominated as running mate
for the oce of Vice Presidency on the
ticket with the publisher. Greeley is also
later nominated on the ticket for the Progressive Republican faction of the dominant
Republican Party, which has held the chief executive oce since 1869 and majority control of the Congress since 1861, the beginning of the recent Civil War. Greeley loses the
election to incumbent 18th President Ulysses
S. Grant, (1822-1885), for his second term
and the Democratic/Progressive Republican
candidate dies several weeks afterwards in
November.
Mount Auburn Cemetery established for
Negro/Black/Afro-American citizens in
southwest area of city o Old Annapolis
Road (Maryland Route 648), and Waterview
Avenue, near future Westport neighborhood,
and later routing alongside its eastern boundary of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway,
(Interstate 295), constructed as a park-like
boulevard between the two cities during the
early 1950s.
Baltimores rst major league baseball franchise, the Lord Baltimores plays at baseball
grounds of Newington Park.
1873
Leadenhall Street Baptist Church built, by
Negro/Colored Baptists in old south Baltimore, (later African Americans).
Mother Mary Theresa of Jesus Gerhardinger
and 5 other sisters arrive in city from Germany
and establish religious womens teaching order
School Sisters of Notre Dame. Co-Foundress
of Notre Dame of Maryland Collegiate Institute for younger girls of elementary or high
school ages. Also have four other schools in
Baltimore, three of which are downtown. 33
acres of land purchased in 1871 along North
Charles Street above East Cold Spring Lane.
Later raised to level of full college in 1895 as
rst Roman Catholic college granting degrees.
Clay Street Fire, o Liberty/Cathedral and
West Saratoga Streets, second largest downtown conagration in the citys history (next
to later Great Baltimore Fire of 1904) destroys ve square city blocks along West
Saratoga Street between North Liberty and

3.2

1850s1890s
North Howard Streets, including rst building
of the Central Presbyterian Church with its tall
bell tower at Liberty and West Saratoga Streets
and the First English Evangelical Lutheran
Church, further west on Saratoga Street.
Fire destroys Old Assembly-Rooms in
November, (just across street from newly built
Baltimore City Hall) at northeast corner of
Holliday and East Fayette Streets. AssemblyRooms current site of The Baltimore City
College since the 1840s (formerly Central
High School of Baltimore, before then Male
High School, then The High School of
1839). Famous GeorgianFederal style architecture structure of Baltimore Dancing Assembly for social, civic and literary activities, also balls and dinners/banquets from the
1790s to the 1830s. Designed by noted local
builder/architect Robert Cary Long, Sr. and
Col. Nicholas Rogers. Neighboring famous
Holliday Street Theatre also burns on block
between East Fayette and Lexington Streets,
originally built 1794, rebuilt in 1812. After re, theatre will be rebuilt and continues
performances until razing in 1917 for future
War Memorial Plaza and City Hall Plaza between City Hall and the 1925 War Memorial
Building on South Gay Street to the east. City
College moves to temporary quarters and two
years later (1875) occupies rst new building
built for its use with English Tudor Revival
style at southwest corner of North Howard and
West Centre Streets. Academy of Music built
later next door to the south along with Auditorium Theatre, and around corner on Franklin
Street is Kernans, later Congress Hotel and
Maryland Theatre constructed.
Johns Hopkins (17951873), noted merchant,
nancier, banker and stockholder of several
companies, railroads and steamship lines, dies
at his West Saratoga Street townhouse by
North Liberty Street (next to old St. Pauls
Church Rectory). Later his will is probated to
nd that he endows a university, hospital and
a medical school, leaving his several estates of
Clifton.
New underground railroad tunnels dug through
and around northwestern, northern and northeastern Baltimore City for the Baltimore and
Potomac Railroad known as the Belt Line
to eliminate pulling locomotives and train cars
through bottle-neck of downtown streets between surrounding line stations by horse since
1829. Also completion of a new Union Station above and along the bending curve of the
north bank of the Jones Falls, between North
Charles Street and St. Paul Street near Mount

41
Royal Avenue, to be used by several lines including those serving the city: Baltimore &
Ohio, Baltimore and Potomac, Northern Central and Pennsylvania Railroads. Landscaped
gardens surround new station and the Jones
Falls stream. Replaced later by 1911 with
more imposing and larger Union Station
quickly later renamed Pennsylvania Station of
granite and marble Beaux Arts/Classical architecture.
1875
New City Hall completed construction since
October 1867 cornerstone-laying on city block
facing Holliday Street between East Fayette
and Lexington Streets (also overtop old Orange Alley) dedicated with great fanfare, pride
and civic enthusiasm, replacing old City Hall
building which was used 18301875, (previously was Rembrandt Peale's Baltimore Museum and Gallery of Fine Arts, 18131830,
and later Municipal Museum of City of Baltimore, 1931, one block further north on Holliday).
Academy of Music opens on North Howard
Street between West Franklin and Centre
Streets on January 5, declared to be one of
the nest playhouse and music hall in the nation. Also will serve in coming decades as auditorium for the new Johns Hopkins University which will be located just north a block.
Built just south and next to George A. Frederick's new building of English Tudor Revival
style for the male high school Baltimore City
College at North Howard and West Centre
Streets.[12]
Free
Summer
incorporated.[12]

Excursion

Society

1876
Johns Hopkins University founded with opening ceremonies on September 12, at the
new Academy of Music at North Howard
between West Franklin and Centre Streets
with address by new president Daniel Coit
Gilman (18471908), (formerly President of
the University of California at Berkeley) and
guest speaker Thomas Huxley. Directed by
will from merchant/philanthropist Johns Hopkins(17951873). First campus of University established by trustees two blocks north at
intersection with Little Ross Street instead of
originally at Hopkins summer country estate
"Clifton" in northeast Baltimore.
The Baltimore City Zoo, (later renamed
Maryland Zoo in Baltimore in the 1990s)

42

3 19TH CENTURY
opens in Druid Hill Park, sixteen years after establishment of Park, and is third (or
fourth) oldest of its type, after New York
Citys Central Park Zoo and the Philadelphia
Zoo.
New glass conservatory for shrubs, plants and
trees constructed at Patterson Park, in East
Baltimore lasts until 1948, similar to later
1888 structure at Druid Hill Park.

1877 Railroad Strike Massive disruptive riots spread throughout the Northeast in July begin in Martinsburg, West Virginia, hit violently in
Pittsburgh and later center at the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad's headquarters and main terminal at the
Camden Street Station. Later appeals by B. & O.
ocials result in the Governor of Maryland calling out the state militias newly reorganized National
Guard Fifth and Sixth Regiments which assembled
and marched from their armories with the 5th coming south on North Howard Street and the 6th coming west from North Front and East Fayette Streets,
(east of the Jones Falls), marching along Baltimore
Street to force a violent suppression of the disaffected protesting railroad workers about their drastic
pay cuts and austerity measures resulting from the
economic recession that year. Other disturbances
continue nation-wide resulting in action by newly
elected Republican 19th President Rutherford B.
Hayes (18221893).
1878 George Peabody Library with multi-level
cast-iron balconies and book stacks (a Cathedral of
Books) with overhead skylight, opens as eastward
extension of original 1866 Peabody Institute building opposite the Washington Monument on East
Monument Street (East Mount Vernon Place), designed by original architect Edmund G. Lind.
State of Maryland purchases old Light Street
Bridge (also known as Long Bridge or
Brooklyn Bridge), a one-mile long wooden
trestle built in 1856, from builders of
Cromwell and Crisp families from South Baltimores Ferry Bar (or Ferry Point) across
Middle and Ferry Branches to Western Branch
of upper Patapsco River to new residential
community of Brooklyn and near-by industrial
town of Curtis Bay in northern Anne Arundel County and lifts tolls which previously restricted trac, sparking new land boom and
spurt of growth in new northern suburban
area of the southern county of Anne Arundel, drawing it now into the burgeoning new
metropolitan area.
1879 First inter-club lacrosse game played in Baltimore.
1880

Womans Industrial Exchange founded, house

and store/restaurant later located on North
Charles and East Hamilton Streets (alley).
Celebration of 150th anniversary of foundation of Baltimore Town in 1729/1730 with
parades, processional arches, decorated buildings with hanging re-white-blue and blackyellow/orange hangings of bunting and various
events, (the other Baltimore anniversary that is
also celebrated is that of incorporation of old
Baltimore Town as a City in 17961797, with
a City Charter being issued then by action of
the General Assembly of Maryland. Various
changes in the structure and operation of the
local municipal government, increased autonomy, increased legislature representation and
increased powers of autonomy/"home rule
occurs in following decades especially with
second municipal charter which takes place
eighteen years later (1898).[16]
1881 Faultless Pajama Company begins in business.
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Companys new
Central Building headquarters with massive
mansard roof completed on northwest corner facing North Calvert and East Baltimore
Streets, to replace old central oces previously since the late 1850s on second oor
above Camden Street Station of 18571865.
Last major project of famous B. & O. President John Work Garrett, who dies 1884.
Heavily damaged in Great Baltimore Fire of
February 1904, and later razed, replaced by
future site of old Emerson Hotel (owner of
Bromo Seltzer in the 20th century), then site
of east end of modern skyscraper facing East
Baltimore Street constructed by and briey
owned by Savings Bank of Baltimore before
merger later into SunTrust.
Civil Service Reform Association established
to lobby for good government and an end
to local political patronage appointments in
the City, especially after assassination of 20th
President James Gareld in Washington railroad station in July. Precursor to later (1885)
Reform League of Baltimore City and Municipal Art Society in 1899 during Progressive Era
political movement..
1882
Local wholesale hardware and building supplies merchant, nancier and businessman
Enoch Pratt (18081896) proposes to establish a public free library system in a letter
sent to the Mayor and City Council with central building and initially four (later two more

3.2

1850s1890s
the following year) branches in four quarters
of the city with circulating books, along with
an endowment of $1,058,000, if the City will
promise to continue to support and provide
for it. Unbeknownst to Baltimoreans, construction of Old Central Library is already
underway since Fall 1881 with razing of several townhouses and excavations, opening later
in January 1886, after four years construction facing West Mulberry Street at Cathedral
Street with the four branches following in a few
months and a fth branch a year later.
New Local merchant Jacob Epstein, then 17year-old Lithuanian immigrant opens Baltimore Bargain House, small re-sale store, later
develops into multi-level inexpensive department store with mail order, wholesale services
and clothing manufacturing on West Fayette
Street, between Liberty and North Howard
Street, until suering a disastrous re. Later
reorganized into Epsteins Department Stores
with several branches in outer city neighborhoods at economy, lower inexpensive shoppers, last until the late 1980s.

1883
Baltimore Manual Training School founded
and originally located in former lower school
building on the east side of Courtland Street
(now Saint Paul Place in the area of the current
terraced Preston Gardens, which replaced it
by the razing of ve north-to-south city blocks
in the 1920s, between East Centre Street in the
north to East Lexington Street to the south, by
the City Circuit Courthouse of 18961900 as
the citys rst large urban renewal project.
This is the later site of Mercy Hospital. Coincidentally, this was across the street and fty
years later from the founding location of rival
high school Baltimore City College (then The
High School) in 1839, in a rented townhouse
on the same street. B.M.T.S. later becomes
Baltimores premier public high school for engineering, mathematics and technology. Renamed in 1893 as the Baltimore Polytechnic
Institute with an all-male student body (coeducates with girls in 1974), and remains here
on Courtland Street at East Saratoga Street
until moved in 1912 to East North Avenue
and North Calvert Street at the former mansion of the Maryland School for the Blind
(which then moves out to Overlea in northeastern Baltimore County). Poly moves again
in 1967 to Falls Road and Cold Spring Lane
in shared campus with all-girls Western High
School.
Also the start later of one of the longest public
high school athletic rivalries in America with

43
City College beginning in sports with football in 1889. Up to this time, along with
the two female high schools Eastern and
Western (founded 1844), and also the recently
re-organized and established "Colored High
School", were the only public high schools in
the state.
Colored High and Training School (later
renamed Frederick Douglass High School)
founded on East Saratoga Street, between
North Charles and St. Paul Streets, near
the former location of previously private
Douglass Institute of 1865, inuenced by
nearby Newton University of 1845, on the 200
block of East Lexington Street (between North
Calvert and North Streets later Guilford Avenue).
Baltimore Young Womens Christian Association founded. First building located at West
Saratoga and North Charles Streets (site of former St. Peters Pro-Cathedral).
1884 Light Street Methodist Episcopal Church
(organizing site of Methodism in America and rst
ordination a century before), moves from downtown
between German (later Redwood) and East Baltimore Streets to new northern suburb of Peabody
Heights at St. Paul Street and 23rd Street (now
Charles Village. Uses name of First Methodist
Episcopal Church. Later changes name from First
Methodist Episcopal Church back to the original
historic name Lovely Lane M.E. Church from its
original site.
1885
Future Goucher College established as
Womens College of Baltimore on Saint Paul
Street in Peabody Heights neighborhood
later Charles Village led by Rev. John
Goucher of historic Lovely Lane Methodist
Church with some classes taught by Hopkins
faculty (successor to older Baltimore Female
College also with Methodist sponsorship).
Reform League of Baltimore City founded to
spearhead eorts to improve city and ght
old-time local Democratic Party municipal
political machine with civic leaders Judge
John C. Rose, and local/national Republican
Party leader Charles Bonaparte, (grandson of
Prince Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte by his illfated 1801 marriage with Elizabeth (Betsy)
Patterson Bonaparte of Baltimore, younger
brother of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Continues and expands on programs
and campaigns by earlier Civil Service Reform
Association of 1881.
Bryn Mawr School opens under leadership of
M. Carey Thomas (18571935), and Mary

44

3 19TH CENTURY
Elizabeth Garrett (18571915], daughter of
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad president John
Work Garrett, and social, educational activist
in her own right. First building at 193 Eutaw Street, several days before namesake Bryn
Mawr College opens in Pennsylvania which
Thomas and Garrett were also associated. By
1890, School moves into one of the most wellappointed schools constructed then at Cathedral and West Preston Streets (later site of
Meyerho Symphony Hall for the Baltimore
Symphony Orchestra in the 1980s).

1886 Opening ceremonies held at Academy of

Music grand luxurious theatre auditorium on North
Howard Street with many notables, honored guests
and citizens/patrons in attendance for the new Central Building and four neighborhood branches (fth
added later) of Enoch Pratt's new Enoch Pratt Free
Library, a few blocks southeast at West Mulberry
near Cathedral Streets, which began construction
ve years early in Fall 1881. Dierent type of library than the earlier bequest of the George Peabody
Library of 1857/1878, Pratt is a circulating public
library system, rst in America.
1887
New city map laid out with grids of streets, avenues, boulevards and alleys designated with
a regular systematic logical numbering system done, causing several addresses and locations of real estate to change their house numbers/addresses before AND after 1887. Numbering counting outwards from center of city
at intersection of Charles Street with North
and South labels divided by Baltimore Street
which is also divided into east and west by
Charles Street, along with parallel downtown
city streets.
Pennsylvania Steel Company of Philadelphia
having recently acquired a new source of iron
ore in the Spanish colony island of Cuba in
1882, seeks a tidewater-based steel manufacturing plant site for shorter transport distances to supplement its older mill in Steelton,
Pennsylvania on the Susquehanna River near
Harrisburg and also closer for shipments of
coal and coke from western Pennsylvania
mines. Acquires several farms from ve local land-owners at a cost of $57,900 with
thousands of acres of land on the end of
the Patapsco Neck peninsula at Sparrows
Point and nearby North Point to the east
in southeastern Baltimore County and begins building a waterfront-access steel mill.
President Luther S. Bent leads the project
along with Samuel Morse Felton, also of the
Company and the President of the associated

Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad, and J. Edgar Thomson, president of

the Northern Central Railroad, a part of the
Pennsylvania Railroad with the chief engineer
on site Frederick Wood who lays out the steel
mill and brother Rufus Wood, who lays out
the adjoining workers and supervisors town
of Sparrows Point, Maryland, with street grids
for houses, stores, shops, churches and other
necessaries.
1888 Second Major Annexation of land from surrounding Baltimore County, known as The Belt,
adds 23 square miles and 38,000 new residents.
Referendum is divided into three sections: West,
North and East, two of which approve but the Eastern side with the towns of Canton and Higlandtown
with their heavy industrial businesses vote against
the bill and are not taken into the City until the next
Third Major Annexation of 19181919.
The Daily Record legal, real estate and
business aairs newspaper reorganized and
founded.
1889 Johns Hopkins Hospital opened on Broadway in East Baltimore, former site of old Maryland Hospital, as instructed by will of Johns Hopkins (17951873), thirteen years after University
opens on city campus along North Howard Street
near West Centre Street.
New United States Post Oce and Federal Courthouse built on Battle Monument
Squares east side at North Calvert Street
between East Lexington and Fayette Streets
of Italian Renaissance architecture with eight
small towers and one large clock tower opposite old 1805/09 [second] Baltimore City
Courthouse (at Calvert and Lexington). Replaced earlier 186265 U.S. Courthouse at
northwest corner of East Fayette and North
(later Guilford Avenue) Streets (which lasted
until 1907 when razed for construction of eastern addition to 1889 Courthouse).[2]
Pennsylvania Steel Company of Philadelphia
completes construction of its new waterfront
access steel mill on several thousand acres of
land from ve local landowners with several
old farms on the Patapsco Neck peninsula at
Sparrows Point and begins producing steel.
1890
Citys population: 434,439 people, according
to the Eleventh Dicennial United States Census
of 1890.[2]
Riverview Park opens as one of the rst
streetcar parks established by a street railway company, (taken over after April 1899

3.2

1850s1890s
consolidation and merger by the United Railways and Electric Company) at the end of various lines at scenic or waterside locations for
amusements, picnicking and exercise, bringing in additional revenues to the streetcar company as its electried lines spread throughout
the town replacing the earlier horse-cars and
omnibuses.
In March 1890, Scottish-born steel industrialist and future philanthropist, Andrew
Carnegie (18351919), of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania who later is the founder of U.S. Steel
Corporation, largest business in the world,
stops in Baltimore for a few days after attending a Pan-American Conference in Washington, to visit Mr. Enoch Pratt (1808
1896), founder of his Enoch Pratt Free Library
four years earlier. Carnegie stays at Pratts
townhouse mansion at Park Avenue and West
Monument Street (future Maryland Historical Society buildings) and tours the old Central Pratt Library and meets rst Chief Librarian, Dr. Lewis Henry Steiner, librarians,
sta workers and patrons of common citizens.
Carnegie is inspired to promote and provide
millions of dollars over the next few decades to
build "Carnegie Libraries" throughout America at the invitation of cities, towns and counties which promise to continue their support.
Carnegie later always says Pratt was my pioneer and forty years later (and thirty after
Pratts death), Carnegies larger bequest builds
a number of additional Pratt Library neighborhood branches and greatly expands the EPFL
system into the late 1920s.

1891 Union Park baseball eld opens for the

Baltimore Orioles who now are playing in the
National League of newly organized professional
major league baseball.
Pennsylvania Steel Company of Philadelphia
organizes a subsidiary of Maryland Steel
Company of Baltimore County to operate its
new two-year-old steel mill at its waterfront
site, purchased 1887 at the end of the Patapsco Neck peninsula at Sparrows Point.
Chinese-style
pagoda
with
colorful
painted/decorated scheme with balconies
constructed on the western side of Patterson
Park, on the former Loudenschlagers Hill,
now Hampstead Hill, near the remains of
the former earthen fortications and trenches
from Rodgers Bastion, to defend the city
during the Battle of Baltimore of the War of
1812 from September 1814.
1892 Baltimore Afro-American newspaper begins
publication. Founded by several citizens (including

45
John Murphy, who later that year, buys the paper),
for Colored/Negro Afro-American citizens.
Construction begins of new massive building project to dig third major railroad tunnel
project under the city with the mile-long railroad tunnel north and south beneath Howard
Street of downtown from Camden Street Station to the new Mount Royal Station, further
north at Mount Royal Avenue at Cathedral
Street/Maryland Avenue for the Baltimore
and Ohio Railroad. Supplements the previously dug 18721873 Baltimore Belt Line
tunnel for the old Baltimore and Potomac
Railroad around northwestern Baltimore City,
with construction several blocks away of old
Union Station between North Charles Street
and St. Paul Street above Mount Royal Avenue and curving bend of Jones Falls stream.
Additional tunnel dug under northeastern city
outskirts in 187475 to connect with northeastern railroad line of Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad. Eliminates
old practice since 1829 of hauling locomotives and train cars through downtown surface
streets by horse connecting between various
rail lines stations for passengers to complete
their through travel.
1893 Johns Hopkins Medical School opens accepting male and female students upon receiving
Mary Elizabeth Garrett (18571915), (only daughter of Civil War-era President of the Baltimore
and Ohio Railroad, John Work Garrett) bequest requiring equal-sex admission opportunities
as a co-educational medical college. The school
of medicine joins the earlier institutions of the
University of 1876, and the Hospital in 1889, established under the will of the late Johns Hopkins
(17951873).
Opening of new Central Building, for
the Young Womens Christian Association
(YMCA) at the northeast corner of Park Avenue and West Franklin Street, in the Mount
Vernon-Belvedere neighborhood.
1894 Lyric Opera House opens on Mount Royal
Avenue by Cathedral Street and Maryland Avenue.
Later becomes home for Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, founded 1916, and the Baltimore Civic
Opera Company. Auditorium constructed with
exquisite acoustics and lauded by musicians. However funds run short and no appropriate front faade
or lobby is completed until the 1970s with a modernistic plain brown brick front. Later in the 2010s,
a bequest from Art and Patricia Model, owners of
the NFL pro football team, the Baltimore Ravens,
who moved the former Cleveland Browns team here
in 1994, provides for a renovation/reconstruction

46

4 20TH CENTURY
and renaming hall as Art and Patricia Model Performing Arts Center at the Lyric.

1895 Clifton Park opens on the late magnate and

philanthropist Johns Hopkins', (17951873) country estate of Clifton o of Harford Road near
the northeast villages of Coldstream-HomesteadMontebello. Originally envisioned by Hopkins before his death as the location of his future great
university, but his appointed trustees board, after
his passing for nancial reasons, decided to temporarily locate the campus on the downtown environs of North Howard, Little Ross, West Centre
and West Monument Streets in 1876, on the suggestion of rst new president Daniel Coit Gilman, (formerly of the University of California at Berkeley),
near the Baltimore City College as a prep school
and the literary resources of the George Peabody Library of the Peabody Institute. Many years later, by
1910, Hopkins moves and begins construction of a
new campus to the north at the old Charles Carroll,
Jr. (Charles Carroll of Homewood)'s 1800 estate of
"Homewood" along North Charles Street. Clifton
Mansion becomes future headquarters for a time of
the Baltimore City Bureau of Parks.[2]
1896
Electric Park opens as another streetcar park
at the terminus of the line of an electric streetcar line which later merges in April 1899 into
the United Railways and Electric Company) in
the northwest area of the city near Belvedere
Avenue and Reisterstown Road.
Colored Young Womens Christian Association founded.
1897 Baltimore celebrates 100th Anniversary
Centennial of incorporation as a city in 1796/1797.

with Garrett as head/commissioner in 1939

1940 appointed by Mayor Howard W. Jackson. By 1958, there are 63 Reks (recreation
centers) in Baltimore with about 200 workers.
1898 New Building for Sharp Street Methodist
Episcopal Church, (now Sharp Street Memorial United Methodist Church and Community
House) built. One of the leading Negro/Colored
Methodist and Protestant churches in the city.
First childrens playground constructed in the
city by newly organized Childrens Playground
Association at Carroll Park in southwest city,
o Washington Boulevard under encourgement of Parks Commissioner Charles Torsch.
1899
Reorganization of various electric streetcar
companies and lines into the United Railways
and Electric Company in April. Later new
unied electric streetcar company recruits in
1902 as president John Miin Hood, (18431906), formerly of the Western Maryland
Railway, who was then undertaking development of the WMRY construction and development of waterfront piers and terminals at
Port Covington on the Middle Branch of the
harbor. Later construction begins by U.R.&
E.C. of new massive brick structure of boilers,
and mechanical equipment with coal-red furnaces with four smoke stacks power plant on
Pier 4 along the East Pratt Street waterfront by
The Basin of the Patapsco River (in todays
Inner Harbor).
Municipal Art Society founded by members
of earlier Reform League of Baltimore City
(1885) as part of continuing eort to beautify
the city and continuing a program of public
improvements under the inuences of the Progressive Era.

Inspired by Childrens Aid Society of New

York by Charles Boring Lace, founded 1853,
which began some work in Baltimores Druid
Hill Park in the 1860s with the establishment
of playgrounds and organized recreation, Miss
Mary B. Steuart organizes Childrens Play- 4 20th century
ground Association with Eliza Ridgely and
Eleanor Freeland, with rst playground in that 4.1 1900s1940s
Park, later incorporated by 1908. Later assisted by many volunteers and sta with her
1900
sister Frances Steuart, Mary Claire O'Brien,
Population: 508,957 people residing in the
and Miss Helen H. Carey. Later merges
City (within old limits of 1888) and 97,755
in 1922 with the Public Athletic League
in the surrounding Baltimore County in the
(formed 1907 by nancier, civic leader and
Twelfth
Diennial United States Census of
1896 Modern Olympic athlete Robert Garrett
[2]
1900.
(18751961)) and becomes the Playground
Third City Courthouse construction comAthletic League (PAL) which conducts recrepleted on entire block of North Calvert Street,
ational and athletic activities and programs
East Lexington Street, St. Paul Street, and
in the City until absorbed by a newly orgaEast Fayette Street, on the western side of the
nized Department of Recreation and Parks

4.1

1900s1940s
Battle Monument Square and dedicated. Later
renamed in 1985 after national civil rights
leader, Baltimorean Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr.
(19111984), Washington oce director of
the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People (NAACP).
Baltimore Morning Herald newspaper begins
publication on northwest corner, St. Paul
and East Fayette Streets with reporter H. L.
Mencken and later editor. Building destroyed
in Great Downtown Fire of four years later and
closes. Mencken goes to The Sun where he
later becomes legendary as editor, (on the later
established afternoon paper, The Evening
Sun, which had a dierent format more
graphics and more local orientation in 1910),
plus columnist, and as an author continuing
his published volumes on linguistic history of
the American language and usage, memoirs of
growing up and working with city life in Baltimore.

1901 Continental Trust Company Building, (now

One South Calvert Building at 201 East Baltimore
Street), skyscraper of new style re-proof masonry, exterior panels hung on a steel framework
designed by famed Chicago architect Daniel H.
Burnham (18461912), of the Chicago School
of skyscraper architecture constructed at southeast corner of North Calvert and East Baltimore
Streets, becoming citys tallest skyscraper for a time.
Burned like a torch during later 1904 Great Fire of
its interior furnishings and walls, but following postre examination, Burnham found exterior walls and
steel framework still sound and so the building was
restored in following years.
1903 Citys largest and most luxurious hostelry
Hotel Belvedere opens, facing West Chase Street
at North Charles Street in the Mount VernonBelvedere neighborhood, north of downtown.
Named after colonial and Federal-era estate of
Belvidere (site two blocks east at North Calvert
Street in Howards Woods of Col. John Eager Howard (17521827), Revolutionary War
commander of "Maryland Line" regiment in the
Continental Army. Overnight home for visiting
American Presidents, Hollywood stars and anybody
really important. One of the most grandest, most
luxurious establishments ever built in the city,
known for its John Eager Howard Room with
decorated murals for exquisite dining, The Owl
Bar, with its hand-carved owls atop a mahoganycarved bar, and later in the 1970s, a modernistic
13th Floor roof-top night club with views of
the Washington Monument and downtown to
the south. Later renovated and restored in the
early 1980s by philanthropist businessman Victor
Frenkil as apartments/condos with a restora-

47
tion of the public spaces/marble lobby/grand
ballroom/restaurants/nightclubs.
Around the corner and a few blocks away, the
Hotel Kernan, built by James Kernan (1838
1912), opened in this same year, later known
several decades later as the Congress Hotel.
Facing West Franklin Street, between North
Paca and west of North Howard Streets of
Beaux Arts architecture Classical style. In the
basement, was a "rathskeller" where the towns
rst "jazz band" music was led by a John Ridgley. Later it became known as the marble bar and continued as a cutting edge musical venue into the 1980s. Attached on the
west side was the similarly elaborate Beaux
Arts/Classical styled Maryland Theater, where
many Hollywood stars appeared, which was
later razed.
United Railways and Electric Company completes constructing Power Plant in several
phases after four years with coal ore furnaces
and four large roof-top smoke-stacks on newly
built Pier 4 (one of reconstruction of seven
modern steel municipal cargo piers facing East
Pratt Street after Great Fire devastation) providing power for electric streetcar system in
the city under leadership of President John
Miin Hood (18431906), (late president of
the Western Maryland Railway and responsible also for envisioning and planning future construction of its Port Covington harbor facilities then underway on the Patapsco
River's Middle Branch). Massive Power Plant
later converted in the 1960s for regular electric power distribution for the Baltimore Gas
and Electric Company when the streetcar system by the U.R.E.C.'s successor public utility rm, the Baltimore Transit Company of
1935, is phased out beginning in the late 1940s
and nally ended by 1963. Gutted and renovated in the mid-1980s as an indoor Victorianstyle amusement park by entertainment rm
Six Flags Over America, and again by David
Cordish Company in the 1990s during the redevelopment project of the "Inner Harbor" and
"Harbor East" waterfront areas beginning in
1970.
Memorial completed to the Baltimorean hero
in the MexicanAmerican War battle at
Monterrey in 1846, Lt. Col. William H.
Watson (1808/1815?1846), commander of
the Baltimore Brigade and the District of
Columbia Volunteers who traveled to the
Gulf of Mexico coastal port of Vera Cruz,
Mexico with commanding Gen. Wineld
Scott (17861866). With a bronze statue and
stone pedestal dedicated, the Watson Monu-

48

4 20TH CENTURY
ment was located rst at the square in Mount
Royal Avenue and West Lanvale Street (across
from the future site of the Maryland Institute
College of Art's new Main Building of three
years later [1906]). Col. Watsons statue was
moved later in the early 1930s in anticipation for possible extension of North Howard
Street several blocks further north to Mount
Royal Terrace at the West North Avenue entrance driveway to Druid Hill Park, unfortunately now adjacent to an entrance ramp for
the Jones Falls Expressway, (Interstate 83),
built in the early 1960s.

1904 Great Fire erupts early Sunday, February 7

to Monday, February 8, burning most of the downtown business district from South Howard Street
in the west to Jones Falls in the east, continuing
north to Fayette Street and Battle Monument Square
in the north and to the waterfront piers along East
Pratt Street facing The Basin (Inner Harbor) in the
south. Third worst conagration to hit an American city in history after the Great Chicago Fire
of 1871 and the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake
and Fire, followed by other weather disasters of
Galveston Hurricane of 1900 and Hurricane Katrina at New Orleans in 2005. Additional help sent
in from Baltimore County and nearby towns along
with by railroad from nearby cities of Washington,
Philadelphia and at the last New York City. Recent re-proof modern skyscrapers built in the
last decade had interiors burn like a torch, but
most were able to be rebuilt on steel frameworks
and masonry exteriors. Streets widened and some
recongured along with new underground utilities
with added electrical conduits eliminating overhead
lines on poles under authority of a newly appointed
Burnt District Commission. Generally only half
of the number of previous downtown structures rebuilt with newer buildings taller and larger, along
with new modern steel municipal piers, (numbers
1 to 6), constructed along Pratt Street waterfront.
Maryland National Guard soldiers stationed downtown for next several weeks. Because of week-end,
records/books for years afterwards recorded no lives
lost although recent research in a local newspaper
previously overlooked, uncovered that an unidentied black mans body was found in the Jones Falls
a week later. XXX buildings destroyed with XX
millions of dollars lost and only XX covered by insurance. Reconstruction continues for next several
years.
1906 Maryland Institute, after having its longtime
landmark 1851 building built over the old Centre
Market (Marsh Market) burned in the Great 1904
Fire, relocates most of its academic activities to a
new Main Building in the northwest of the midtown Mount Vernon-Belvedere-Mount Royal neigh-

borhood at Mount Royal Avenue and West Lanvale

Street, south of landmark Corpus Christi Roman
Catholic Church on property donated by parishioner
Michael Jenkins (of family of banking/railroad magnate Thomas Courtney Jenkins). Lt. Col. William
F. Watson statue Mexican War Memorial dedicated earlier in 1903 is located in the square across
the street (moved later in early 1930s, several blocks
north to Mount Royal Terrace at West North Avenue
entrance to Druid Hill Park). City of Baltimore later
donates two oors above the northern structure of
the three new parallel market buildings constructed
on the east side facing Jones Falls at the old Market
Place (Harrison Street) site for continuing its mechanical, drawing and technical courses, supervised
by the new Centre Market Commission, headed by
Gen. Felix Agnus, publisher of the Baltimore American. New Centre Market buildings used until the
1980s, with wholesale sh, produce and dry goods
distributed below on ground levels. Two of the three
buildings (northern and southern) later razed for expressway extension for southern terminus of Jones
Falls Expressway, (Interstate 83) and construction
of underground (Metro) subway system. Classes
and studios of the Maryland Institute College of Art
(MICA) consolidated further northwest to an extensive multi-building campus adjoining original 1906
Main Building along Mount Royal Avenue during
the 1980s to 2010s. Fish Market (central market
building) replaced with "Port Discovery" childrens
museum and adjacent parking garage.
Homewood Field laid out and constructed
for athletic contests at northern end of new
campus for Johns Hopkins University (JHU)
at southwest corner of University Parkway
and North Charles Street. JHU is moving from its older downtown campus from
1876 along North Howard Street, between
West Centre, Little Ross and West Monument
Streets, in southwest area of Mount VernonBelvedere mid-town neighborhood. First academic buildings constructed were Gilman Hall
and Shriver Hall, occupied in 19141915,
with distinctive GeorgianFederal style architecture of red brick and white colonial wood
trim with cupolas and steeples on a park-like
campus between Charles Street and University Parkway, east of Wyman Park. Besides
Blue Jays collegiate athletic contests here,
some public and private high school games
played here such as between City College and
Polytechnic Institute for their long-time football rivalry since 1889, which began originally
at Clifton Park, also Calvert Hall College versus Loyola High School, and others in the local
Maryland Scholastic Association.
1907

4.1

1900s1940s
Reconstruction continues of Centre Market area on Market Place (former old Harrison Street and colonial site of Harrisons
Marsh) in east downtown after devastation
from Great Fire with three adjacent (east-west
axis) wholesale market buildings for produce,
sh, dry-goods and some retail with space for
Maryland Institutes College of Art and Design
on upper two oors of northern building under leadership of new Centre Market Commission, headed by chairman, Gen. Felix Agnus,
owner/publisher of the Baltimore American
newspaper with marble horse-drinking fountain in middle of square donated by animallover, Gen. A. E. Booth. Razing of several buildings and further re-development later
in the mid-1980s by Six Flags Over America as entertainment/restaurant/taverns complex named The Brokerage at northern end
of plaza, and then again in the mid-1990s
by the David Cordish Company renamed as
"Power Plant Live!" (for old streetcar electrical generating plant of 19001903 one block
south on Pratt Street).
Cornerstone laid for new Central Building of
Young Mens Christian Association (YMCA)
at northeast corner of East Franklin and Cathedral Streets in Mount Vernon-Belvedere neighborhodd and Cathedral Hill (founded in Baltimore in 1852 and previously located in triangular Victorian styled structure at northwest
corner of West Saratoga and North Charles
Street, built 18721873). New YMCA at former site of George Homans Greek Revival
mansion built in the 1820s (one of rst constructed in Col. John Eager Howard later development by heirs of estate of Belvidere
or Howards Woods) and later used from
1857 to 1894 for the Southern-sympathizing
Maryland Club for male elites (which was
threatened by Union Army-occupying Gen.
Benjamin F. Butler to shot any visible Rebel
ags o the roof from the newly fortied Fort
Federal Hill in May 1861). Across street
to the west was the Franklin Street Presbyterian Church and north of old Baltimore
Cathedral designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe (18061826). Also cross-corner from
future expansion site in 19311933 of central/main branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library on Cathedral Street from rst Central Library building of 18821886, further south on
corner with West Mulberry Street. Opening
in 1909, new Central YMCA functions with
many social and athletic activities for nearly
70 years with its indoor pool, gymnasium, athletic rooms, dormitories, kitchen/cafeterias,
and classrooms. Later a separate Colored

49
YMCA opens in northwestern inner city
area of Upton on Druid Hill Avenue. One
block west on Franklin Street at Park Avenue
was also central headquarters of companion
agency Young Womens Christian Association,
(YWCA). Later in 1984, YMCA of Central
Maryland reorganized facilities and closed the
Central Headquarters which were later converted into the Mount Vernon Hotel and Caf.
New building completed for the all-girls,
academic-business oriented Eastern High
School at the southeast corner of Broadway
and East North Avenue in the northeast
corner of the city. Unfortunately, one of the
last major high schools built right up to the
street and sidewalk with no adjoining campus
for other activities. Later Eastern moves to
another new building in 1938 at 33rd Street
boulevard and Loch Raven Boulevard in the
former Venable Park (which stirs up political
controversy by citizens and nearby residents).
Saving municipal budget monies during the
Great Depression, new E.H.S. matched the
architecture and construction diagrams of
the previously constructed, sister school
Western High at Gwynns Falls Parkway o
Reisterstown Road/Park Heights Avenue
from 1927 in northwest Baltimore.
New headquarters building of Classical/Beaux
Arts architecture built on the southwest corner
of South Charles and East Baltimore Streets,
an intersection which becomes known for the
next half-century as Sun Square, and the
central geographic point of the city, for the
rebuilt oces and printing plant completed
this year after the Great Baltimore Fire of
February 1904, devastated the previous Sun
Iron Building of 1851 (at East Baltimore and
South Streets) for the twice-daily newspaper
The Sun and The Evening Sun (also known colloquially as The Sunpapers). Suns building
lasts until the mid-1960s and replaced in the
"Charles Center" downtown redevelopment
project of 19581970 by the also later landmark Morris A. Mechanic Theatre of pouredconcrete Brutalist Modernist style adjoining
new Hopkins Plaza in middle of block.
Across the street on the southeast corner of
East Baltimore and South Charles is the new
GrecoRoman styled Temple of Thrift of
white marble with massive columns, steps and
porticoes is built for the old Savings Bank of
Baltimore (SSB), founded 1818, with a different structure and mission compared to the
citys other large nancial institutions. The
SSB is oriented towards small customers of
savers and depositers. The Bank lasts until

50

4 20TH CENTURY
the 1990s bank merger and out-of-town takeover mania, building a newer skyscraper two
blocks further east at North Calvert and East
Baltimore Streets iconic northwest corner, renames itself, dropping the term Savings and
is shortly taken over by "SunTrust". Its old
landmark oces become central to a charity
organization.

1908 Washington, Baltimore and Annapolis Electric Railway (inter-urban electric rail cars) begins operating on a triangular route through Anne
Arundel County from the State Capital to The
Monumental City and then to Washington, D.C..
Line opens February 7, 1908 from its Baltimore
station on Liberty Street (between West Lexington
and West Fayette Streets) to Washingtons 15th and
'H' Streets, N.E. and then to Annapolis. In 1921,
City terminal is relocated to southwest corner of
South Howard and West Lombard Streets (later site
of Holiday Inn hotel). Sold at auction in 1935,
later owners form Baltimore and Annapolis Railroad Company operating commuter diesel buses up
to the early 1970s from the state capital to Brooklyn
in South Baltimore.
1909 Art Gallery building constructed by nancier and philanthropist Henry Walters (1848
1931), built and opened at northwest corner of
North Charles and East Centre Streets, facing the
south square of Washington Place, to house and exhibit his personal extensive collection of art amassed
by him over decades along with previous acquisitions of his father, William Thompson Walters
(18201894). Structure built across the back alley
from their brownstone mansion facing north towards
West Mount Vernon Place in the Mount VernonBelvedere neighborhood, facing the Washington
Monument to the north and east. Occasionally
gallery since original 1909 construction is opened
for viewing by the Baltimore public. After Walters 1931 death, the Gallery with its collection of
paintings, statuary, tapestries, jewels, and thousands
of items, one of Americas greatest collections, is
willed to the City of Baltimore and a museum established, along with the family mansion and an endowment. An additional modernistic annex is constructed to the west along West Centre Street to Park
Avenue at rear in 1974, and addition of the former
Thomas-Jencks-Gladding Mansion to the north, facing the Monument at its southwest corner, to house
Asian art in 1982, with the new name of Hackerman House, named for donor Willard Hackerman.
1911 Pennsylvania Station (Baltimore) (originally
known as Union Station until 1928) constructed
of elaborate imposing Beaux Arts/Classical style architecture with beautiful marble interior atrium surmounted by a stained glass skylight and rookwood

green wall tiles built for the use of several passenger rail lines including the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Western Maryland Railway and later the
B. & O. (besides their nearby Mount Royal Station, a few blocks southwest). Replaced earlier
Victorian styled Union Station from 1873, second
terminal rebuilt 1881, on same site also used by
the several railroads after the construction then of
the connecting underground Baltimore and Potomac
Railroad tunnels under, through and around northern, northwestern and northeastern Baltimore City
(known as the Belt Line), so as not to have steam,
smoke-blowing locomotives pulling through downtown streets (later shortly replaced by electric then
diesel locomotives) or the system since the 1830s of
horse-drawn railcars between stations. Connected
with the B. & O.'s Howard Street Tunnel of 1890
1895, going north and south under downtown. Sited
between North Charles Street and Calvert Street,
north of Mount Royal Avenue and the community of
Mount Vernon-Belvedere-Mount Royal, along curving bend of north bank of the Jones Falls. Later
used also by other regional and national passenger
rail lines until major bankruptcies with reorganization of national railroads in 1970 with Amtrak passenger system. Cleaned, refurbished and restored in
the early 1980s. Neighborhood north of the Station
along North Avenue, previously generally known as
Mid-Town, given neighborhood name of PennNorth-Charles, and later renamed in the 2010s as
Station North with creation of supporting community benets district zone organization.
1912
Arch Social Club founded.
1912 Democratic National Convention meets
in Baltimore for rst national political party
convention since 1860 at new Fifth Regiment
Armory on North Howard Street (along future
renamed 29th Division Street for famous
Blue-Gray Division of Maryland/Virginia
soldiers, that attacked Omaha Beach on DDay, June 6, 1944). Democrats nominates
Woodrow Wilson (18561924), incumbent
Governor of New Jersey, (and also former
President of Princeton University and graduate of Baltimores Johns Hopkins University) for President, running against incumbent
Republican 27th President William Howard
Taft (18571930), and former Republican
26th President Theodore Roosevelt (1858
1919), running on a third-party ticket of the
newly organized Progressive Party platform.
Wilson is joined by his Vice Presidential nominee Thomas R. Marshall (18541925), of
Indiana and was elected as 28th President,
(serving 19131921), over Taft and Roosevelt.

4.1

1900s1940s
Construction begins on additional buildings
of (Aldersaal [parish house/social hall], bell
tower, parsonage, and enclosed gardens) at
Old Zion Lutheran Church, downtown across
from City Hall along East Lexington Street
west from North Gay Street (facing later 1920s
War Memorial Building and City Hall Plaza to
commemorate all war dead).
Citys public math-science and technical
school, Baltimore Polytechnic Institute relocates from old building on east side of
Courtland Street near East Saratoga Street
(future redeveloped St. Paul Place/Street
and Preston Gardens constructed in 1920s
older building later used by new Baltimore City Department of Public Welfare and
razed by 1963 for westward expansion for
Mercy Hospital from Calvert Street) to the former campus and mansion from 1866 of the
Maryland School for the Blind at East North
Avenue and North Calvert Street. Old Poly
has two additional wings are added to the east
and west in the Beaux Arts/Classical style of
architecture. Additional central wing replaces
old M.S.B. mansion by 1931 with additional
auditorium/gynasium wing further east. Blind
School relocates 19111913 to park-like campus in Overlea section of northeast Baltimore
County. Polytechnic resides here for ve and
a half decades before joining all-girls Western
High School in joint campus in north Baltimore at West Cold Spring Lane and Falls Road
in 1967. Renamed later as Calvert Educational Center, structure hold variety of educational uses until major gutting, renovation
and remodeling as central headquarters for the
Baltimore City Public Schools in the 1980s, as
Alice G. Pinderhughes Administrative Building for former superintendent, replacing previous 1930s-era oces at 25th Street, between Charles and St. Paul Streets.

1913 New routing and construction of the Francis

Scott Key Highway (known as Key Highway
for short) along north and east sides of Federal
Hill and along northern shore of Whetstone
Point peninsula on south bank of Northwest
Branch of Patapsco River to Baltimore Harbor. Highway with narrow median strip constructed of concrete surface with occasional
older cobblestone sections with railroad tracks
imbedded for pier access, continues southeast towards Locust Point port terminals and
residential community and passes under overhead bridge for Fort Avenue, curves back to
the west and extends to South Hanover Street,
completely surrounding old South Baltimore

51
residential communities. Serving as a by-pass
for industrial and port facilities truck trac in
the future automotive age along with directing
anticipated historical tourism trac towards
historic Fort McHenry at end of peninsula, recently leased to the City from the U.S. War
Department of the now decommissioned antique and obsolete military reservation, which
establishes a city park in the following year,
as part of the National Star Spangled Banner
Centennial Celebration.
Major public works construction project of
building new Fallsway highway over former
stream of Jones Falls which is directed beneath in two concrete conduit tunnels from
Mount Royal Avenue and Pennsylvania Station to the north owing south to Fayette Street
where once again ows between two stone
canal walls further south to Patapsco River
Northwest Branch.
1914
Baltimore Museum of Art founded and opens
at old mansion of Mary Elizabeth Garrett
(18541915), only daughter of B. & O. Railroad Civil War-era president, John Work Garrett (18201884), (later replaced by apartment house, which later becomes Peabody
Court Hotel operated by Wyndom hotel
chain) at southwest corner of Cathedral and
West Monument Streets, facing West Mount
Vernon Place (where her parents brownstone
mansion, the Garrett-Jacobs Mansion also
faces) and the Washington Monument further
east. B.M.A. later moves to Art Museum
Drive o North Charles Street, near Wyman
Park, south of the new Homewood campus
of The Johns Hopkins University in simplied
GreekRoman Revival/Classical-style structure by famous American architect John Russell Pope (18741937).
Hippodrome Theatre built on Eutaw Street between West Fayette and Redwood Streets and
shows early silent movies and burlesque live
shows, later after 1927 with talkies sound
movies. Closed, run-down and abandoned after the 1970s with several other major downtown movie palaces. Restored, renovated and
re-opened in the 2010s as new performing
arts center replacing earlier Morris A. Mechanic Theatre (at southwest corner of South
Charles Street and West Baltimore Street, part
of Charles Center downtown re-development
project of the 1950s and 60s), with live theatre and Broadway theatre shows. Theatre renovation combined with two neighboring bank
buildings completing larger new theatre complex on entire block.

52

4 20TH CENTURY
Baltimore Orioles recruit schoolboy prodigy
George Herman Ruth (Babe) from St.
Marys Industrial School on Wilkens and
Caton Avenues in southwest (now site since
1966 of Cardinal Gibbons High School) and
trains him to hit and pitch for the International
League Birds. Later owner/manager Jack
Dunn, Sr. (18721928), under nancial pressure from the competition of the new third
league with the Federal League, with its
Baltimore Terrapins, playing across the street
in their new steel-beamed modern stadium
of Terrapin Park on the northwest corner of
Greenmount Avenue and 29th Street in the
northeast city neighborhood of Waverly just
across from the old wooden American League
Park/Oriole Park of 1901 on the southwest
corner. Dunn is forced to sell his best product
Dunns Babe to the Boston Red Sox at their
new Fenway Park in the American League.
Five years later, after using him mostly as a
pitcher, they in turn trade him to the newly renamed team of the New York Yankees (since
1913, formerly the New York Highlanders
which had previously before 1903 had originally been the old Baltimore Orioles charter
franchise when the American League began in
1901. The Yankees at that time had not established a very successful record until the arrival
of young Babe Ruth from Baltimore.
"Star Spangled Banner Centennial Celebration observed in Baltimore for the 100th Anniversary of the War of 1812 (18121815),
campaign with the Battle of Baltimore and
Battle of North Point during September 12
14, 1914. Parades, decorated buildings, dedications of new commemorative monuments
and statues, along with publication of commemorative book. Fort McHenry on Whetstone Point, adjacent to the nearby rowhouse
neighborhood of Locust Point turned over to
be leased by the City of Baltimores newly organized Department of Recreation and Parks
for use as a public park by the U.S. War Department. Later taken back by the Federal
Government in three years with the advent of
U.S. entry into World War I in April 1917, for
immediate and emergency use as United States
Army General Hospital Number Two when
a large complex of temporary wooden structures/barracks, concrete/brick medical and
surgical facilities and additional army post
buildings are erected surrounding the historic
star fort and used until war ends in 1919,
then later returned to the City again as a park
when post-war medical operations conclude
and hospital buildings and driveways are razed
by 1923. Later becomes national monument

in 1925, with dedication of Orpheus musical and poetic Greek god monument by 28th
President Warren G. Harding, with additional
status as national shrine in 1939, administered
by new National Park Service established 1916
in the U.S. Department of the Interior.
1915 Municipal anthem, Baltimore, Our Baltimore, written by poet Folger McKinsey, columnist
for The Sun, known as the Bentztown Bard from
Frederick, Maryland, with music by Mrs. Emma
Hemberger, (wife of Theodor)a foremost musical
composer in the city, having won rst place in a
contest during the year 1915, with entries to be
presented by December 1, sponsored by Mayor
James H. Preston with a prize of $250 in gold,
one for the best original poem and another for the
best musical setting. Judges for the contest were
Harold Randolph Director of the Peabody Institute-Conservatory of Music, Henrietta Baker Low
former Supervisor of Music for the Baltimore City
Public Schools, and John Itzel composer and orchestra conductor. During a concert of various musical pieces, both instrumental and vocal presented,
the winning song of four verses was later announced
and performed for the rst time with a small group
of orchestral pieces, a concert choir The United
Singers assisted by 300 local high school girls at
the Lyric Opera House on Mount Royal Avenue,
at Cathedral Street, before an audience of notables,
"Washingtons Birthday", February 22, 1916. Required for a long time afterwards to be taught in
all city schools and to be at least familiar to conductors and leaders of any city musical groups, orchestras or bands and sung at any ceremony, dedication, parades or ocial program, on city, state
and national holidays events, including regular concerts by the Municipal Park Band with its summertime extraganzas and other events sponsored by the
City Department of Recreation and Parks (which included a Bureau of Music unusual for most major U.S. cities). It however, suered later periods
of neglect. By the 1960s, longtime comptroller and
gady Hyman A. Pressman and former Mayor and
Governor of Maryland, William Donald Schaefer,
called for it frequently, leading to a renaissance of
familiarity in later decades. Occasionally it joined
the singing of the states controversial but interesting anthem, "Maryland, My Maryland", by James
Ryder Randall, from a tumultuous Civil War era in
1861.
Maryland State Normal School, founded
1866, rst located briey at Red Mans Hall
on North Paca Street, then former William
Howard Greek Revival mansion, later by 1863
becomes Union/Athenaeum Club at northeast
corner of North Charles and East Franklin
Streets, then relocated by 1870s to West Bal-

4.1

1900s1940s
timore at Lafayette Square, at Layfayette and
Carollton Avenues moves to new campus in
county seat of suburban Baltimore County,
south of Towson on west side of York Road
(Maryland Route 45). General Assembly of
Maryland passes a $600,000 bond issue in
April 1912, making the teachers school the
largest building initiative in the state. Administration Building rst constructed (later renamed Stephens Hall), along with Newell Hall
student dormitory, in English Jacobethan style
architecture and nearby power plant. Neighboring mansion Glen Esk used for presidents residence. New campus opens after two-year construction in September 1915.
Additional similarly styled structures facing
east towards York Road built with Richardson
Hall and a few others, for a temporarily unied appearance. Additional teachers colleges
opened later in other sections of Maryland. In
later years, "normal, school is renamed several times, as Maryland State Teachers College
at Towson in 1935, then Towson State College
by 1963, later Towson State University and nally Towson University. Second largest college/university in the state by 2010s.

1916
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra formed. Performs rst at Lyric Opera House and Theatre
on Mount Royal Avenue at Cathedral Street
with its auditorium of great acoustics, built on
Mount Royal Avenue at Cathedral Street in
1894.
Baltimore Black Sox baseball team formed
and plays in the Negro Leagues, in addition
to the local white minor league baseball tem,
Baltimore Orioles of the International League.
Others later are the Baltimore Elite Giants,
playing at old Westport Stadium in southwest
section of city.
1917
Fort Holabird (initially named Camp Holabird) established along southeast city waterfront for World War I eort, joined by Camp
Meade further south near Annapolis Junction
in Anne Arundel County. Famous military
general purpose vehicle (nicknamed later as
the "jeep"), tested on dirt tracks during 1941
1942 at Holabird. Meade later becomes center
of post-war electronic intelligence gathering in
the National Security Agency, headquartered
here.
Lithuanian Hall opens in East Baltimore.
Famous old Holliday Street Theatre, originally rst erected 1794 of lumber, then re-

53
constructed 1812 in Greek Revival architecture of stone and brick; re-built 18731874
after re, now after 122 venerable years of
shows, plays and concerts on the stage, torn
down with entire block between Holliday, East
Fayette, North Gay and East Lexington Streets
across from Baltimore City Hall (of 1867
1875) to begin preparations for construction of
City Hall Plaza and War Memorial Plaza and
later War Memorial Building in the mid-1920s
to the east end along South Gay Street.
Hanover Street Bridge designed and supervised construction by noted city/state bridge
engineer John E. Greiner (later led construction and bridge rm) completed in January with passage of special electric streetcar Maryland from United Railways after three-year project across the Middle
Branch/Ferry Branch of the Patapsco River
and Baltimore Harbor. Connecting old South
Baltimore/Whetstone Point peninsula from
Ferry Bar/Point across to northern Anne
Arundel County at Brooklyn with causeway
for extended South Hanover Street (and later
parallel Potee Street) on an earthen berm
around the western shore of the branch and
also across Western Branch owing east from
Elkridge/Ellicott City of the upper Patapsco. New concrete-arched bridge replaced
old Light Street Bridge, long wooden trestle
built 1856, (also known as Long Bridge or
Brooklyn Bridge) to Brooklyn and further to
industrial area of Curtis Bay across the river.
Bridge connects further south to BaltimoreAnnapolis Road (later Gov. Ritchie Highway
after 1936). Modern connection highlights
benets of future city annexation of southern suburban areas in Anne Arundel two years
later.
Early organization during World War I-era of
musical opera lovers formed and named Baltimore Opera Society by conductor David S.
Melamet with Barron Berthald of New York as
stage manager. An outgrowth of his Melamet
Opera Class. Continued on through the 1920s
putting on productions at the Lyric Opera
House (1894) on Mount Royal Avenue with
casts composed of Baltimoreans with an occasional New York guest from the Met. After his death, the local company was continued by Eugene Martinet (founder of Martinet School of Opera in 1927) who reorganized, directed and conducted. Later succeeded by several other companies and then
in 1950 with the Baltimore Civic Opera Company, organized and inspired by local famous
opera singer Rosa Ponselle who later retired in
northern Baltimore County.

54

4 20TH CENTURY

1918 Last casualty of World War I on the Western

Front in northwestern France is a Baltimorean, Private Henry Gunther of the 313th Regiment, Baltimores Own at Ville-devant-Chaumont, area of
Lorraine on Armistice at the eleventh hour, of
eleventh day and eleventh month. His unit had only
been in combat for two months and had just been
told of the end of the war just fteen minutes earlier
because of a foul-up with the couriers. Pvt. Gunther was shot by burst of machine gun re from Germans 31st Prussian Army, when he ran at their lines,
one minute before the 11 a.m. Cease-Fire, November 11, 1918. Was a former supply sergeant who
had recently been demoted for violating mail censorship rules by writing in a letter home that conditions on the line were intolerable and suggested he
not enlist. Was depressed and seemed to try to want
to redeem himself. Gunther was from recent German immigrants in East Baltimores Highlandtown,
not wanting to attack former countrymen of his, a
former bank teller and clerk at the National Bank
of Baltimore with a ance and had been drafted
in September 1917, not volunteering immediately
when war was declared in April 1917. Later U.S.
Army restored his sergeants rank and awarded him
the "Distinguished Service Cross" and a unit citation. Later a local Post #1858 of the Veterans of
Foreign Wars was named for him, the last American killed in the war to end all wars.
1919 William F. Broening (18701953), a Republican, elected mayor and serves to 1923. Unusual interlude of city political power for the
Republican Party in the predominantly Democraticvoting city. After his mayoralty, Broening Highway, is named for him where later a large General
Motors auto/truck assembly plant is constructed facing the highway in southeast Baltimore and a small
waterfront Broening Park named for him and established southeast of the now landmark concretearched Hanover Street Bridge of 19141917 (later
renamed Vietnam Veterans Memorial Bridge in
1990s) across the Middle and Ferry Branches of the
main Patapsco River and Baltimore Harbor. Parallel causeways carrying South Hanover and Potee Streets (and Maryland Route 2) lead south to
Brooklyn and Curtis Bay industrial and residential
communities. Baltimore and Maryland Yacht Clubs
and several sculling/rowing teams build their clubhouses here along southwestern shores and hold river
races. Later parkland expanded along Western (or
Ferry Branch) leading from upper Patapsco with
narrowing width with lling-in nearby marshes for
Cherry Hill/Reedbird Park, south of the Cherry Hill
neighborhood into larger shoreline Middle Branch
Park beginning in the 1980s.
Organization of the Maryland Scholastic Association for high school student athletic

competition between Baltimore City public high schools and metropolitan area private and religious (generally Roman Catholic)
secondary schools with 13 charter member
schools, which initially met in the old Barn
structure at The Johns Hopkins University's
new Homewood campus (on North Charles
Street, between later Art Museum Drive and
University Parkway, east of Wyman Park
Dell). In attendance at the leagues formation are: Baltimore City College, Baltimore
Polytechnic Institute, (both municipal high
schools), Boys Latin School of Maryland,
Calvert Hall College, (high school), Donaldson School (since extinct), Friends School of
Baltimore, The Gilman School of Maryland,
Loyola High School, Marston School (since
extinct), McDonogh School, Mount St. Joseph
College (high school), Park School of Baltimore, and the Severn School in Anne Arundel County. Called together by inspiration of
Dr. Phillip H. Edwards, athletic coach and
later noted principal of Baltimore City College (BCC), who had earlier organized a student athletic council for scheduling and ofciating, along with Russell Murphy, later
of Johns Hopkins University's (JHU) Athletic
Department-football program with the Blue
Jays. Dr. J.M.T. Finney elected rst President of the new M.S.A. and followed by Prof.
Murphy of JHU in 1921. Other long-time
leaders are Adelay G. Hausmann of Gilman,
Otto K. Schmied of BCC, and Herb Armstrong (BCC), Charles Gamper of Edmondson
High School, and later William (Sugar) Cain
of Dunbar (after MSA racially integrates).
MSA is one of rst state-wide high school
athletic associations to voluntarily racially integrate in March 1956, adding Paul Laurence Dunbar Community High School (established originally as a new junior high school
in the 1920s), Carver Vocational-Technical
High School, and later Frederick Douglass
High School (founded 1883 as the Colored
High School and Training School). By the
1970s, MSA (which its winning teams in central Maryland generally meant a state championship) membership had considerably expanded to include additional outlying city public and suburban private schools. In 1993,
Dr. Walter Amprey, new superintendent
of Baltimore City Public Schools (who had
graduated and begun his teaching career in
the City but later moved to the surrounding county to become a principal, then administrator and asst. superintendent), forced
the Citys high schools to withdraw from the
league and join the newer Maryland Pub-

4.1

1900s1940s
lic Secondary Schools Athletic Association
(MPSSA)) which included the rest of the 23
counties of the state and had grown since its
establishment in the 1950s with the growth of
suburban and rural public secondary schools
and the new additional co-ed and girls athletic
programs. The shrunken MSA, once vaunted
for its unique public-private competitions for
almost 75 years, rare in the nation, was forced
to re-organize as the twin private leagues of
the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association for boys and the Interscholastic Athletic
Association of Maryland for girls sports.

1920 Citizens National Bank skyscraper tower

erected at southwest corner of Light Street (additional postal address at 7 East Redwood [previously
long-time name of German Street before World
War I] Streets, succeeding Bromo-Seltzer Tower
and Maryland Casualty Companys Tower Building (both with large landmark clocks on the east
and west sides of downtown business district) as the
citys tallest building until 1929 and construction of
Baltimore Trusts Art Deco"style tower one block
north. Later becomes headquarters of prominent
First National Bank of Maryland (one of the largest
nancial institutions in the state), until urry of bank
mergers and out-of-town take-overs in the 2000s.
Old Citizens National has the most beautiful, elaborate banking room/lobby in the city. Now occupied
by the Municipal Employees Credit Union of Baltimore City (MECU).
First of annual football game played November 12 of traditional rivalry between Roman
Catholic high schools Calvert Hall College
(Christian Brothers) and Loyola High School
(Jesuits (Society of Jesus) in the public-private
high school sports league Maryland Scholastic Association founded the previous year.
Calvert Hall-Loyola joins other long-time local rivalries such as City-Poly, McDonoghGilman, Mt. St. Josephs-Patterson Park,
and Forest Park-Southern, and colleges such
as Hopkins-Maryland (College Park) and
Hopkins-Navy. Beginning in the 1920s with
large crowds of spectators at local athletic
elds/stadiums and local media coverage for
sports fans in a city at a time previous to the organization of nation-wide professional sports
teams and leagues.
1922
Municipal Stadium (or also known as Baltimore Stadium or Venable Stadium) built
at the urging of Mayor William Frederick
Broening after only seven months construction of concrete, steel and wooden benches
for $458,000 partially dug-in excavation and

55
opened December 2 in northern former Venable Park along new 33rd Street Boulevard
with rst game for U.S. Armys Third Corps
vs. Marine Corps at Camp Quantico, Virginia
football game with 50,000 attending, preceded
by 12,000 soldiers and Marines parading from
B. & O. Railroads Mount Royal Station. Stadium with horseshoe shape with open end facing south towards 33rd Street with GrecoRoman columnade and portico. Besides frequent big-league collegiate games in the next
three decades, also used by high schools special rivalry games such as City-Poly, Calvert
Hall-Loyola, and Patterson-Mt. St. Joseph.
After July 1944 re at old 29th Street Oriole
Park, Municipal Stadium used temporarily by
International League baseballs Baltimore Orioles until 1953. Later reconstruction project
beginning 1950 and further alterations with
second upper deck by Spring 1954 as renamed
Memorial Stadium (World War II memorial
project) for citys pro football two teams of
the Baltimore Colts of the old All-America
Football Conference and the Baltimore Colts
of the NFL plus American League baseballs
Baltimore Orioles, after 1954.
Royal Theatre opens on Pennsylvania
Avenue in northwestern inner city neighborhood of Upton. Becomes center for
Negro/Black/African-American
entertainment, concerts and performances and focal
point of that cultural district in the 1920s to
the 1960s.
Fire Department builds new headquarters
building of red brick/stone trim Georgian/Federal style (facing new War Memorial
Plaza and War Memorial building on South
Gay Street to the east and City Hall on Holliday Street at west end) along East Lexington
Street on south side of Old Zion Lutheran
Church of 180708 and 191213 additions.
1923 Howard W. Jackson becomes mayor succeeding William F. Broening until 1927.
1924 Construction begins on new boys high school
of Baltimore City College of Collegiate Gothic
stone architecture with dominating 150 foot bell
tower on 33rd Street Boulevard. Previously former hill-top estate near old Montebello mansion
of old War of 1812 General Samuel Smith, (General, U.S. Senator, City Mayor) and hill-top site of
Abbottston, Victorian mansion of Canton Ironworks industrialist Horace Abbott to replace second overcrowded BCC second structure at North
Howard and West Centre Streets (buildings of 1875
and 1895) and aa temporary 25th Street Annex.
1925 University of Baltimore founded as private

56

4 20TH CENTURY
independent school, with Law School and later business school, around urban streets-grid campus by
Mount Royal and Cathedral Street/Maryland Avenues in northwest of Mount Vernon-BelvedereMount Royal mid-town community. Later purchased by state and merges in the 1970s with
University System of Maryland, greatly expanding
its campus to additional urban center.

1927
William F. Broening (Republican) elected to
separate second term as mayor succeeding
Jackson, in oce until 1931.
New building and expansive park-like campus for Western High School for girls with
an academic-business curriculum, (founded
1844 with twin sister Eastern High) with 'H'
shaped, three-stories English Tudor/Gothic
Revival style architecture of red brick and
linestone trim. Located in northwest Baltimore at new Gwynns Falls Parkway at intersection with Reisterstown Road/Park Heights
Avenue across from old George Brown (noted
nancier of old rm Alex. Brown & Sons)
estate of Mondawmin. Architectural plans
from Western High re-used a decade later
to save money during "Great Depression" for
twin-sister school Eastern High, built across
town on 33rd Street Boulevard in 1938 next
to City Colleges Castle on the Hill.
1928
New public high school building for boys for
the Baltimore City College opened April 10,
at 33rd Street and The Alameda in stone Collegiate Gothic palace with 150-foot tower in
northeast city on expansive 39 acre park-like,
hill-top campus of old "Abbotston/GilmanCate" Victorian estate of Canton iron foundry
industrialist Horace Abbott from the Civil
War era, overlooking city from the northeast.
New City College, one of the most expensive schools ever built in America up to that
time envisioned also to have inter-connecting
'E'-shaped wings for lower schools on elementary/junior high levels along with southernside sports stadium, which were only built
decades later. BCC, founded 1839 in downtown as the third oldest public high school in
the country, then considered the capstone and
agship school for the Baltimore City Public
Schools.
Conowingo Dam completed crossing on the
lower Susquehanna River above the Head of
Elk at northern end of Chesapeake Bay. Constructed for the Philadelphia Electric Company with power plant, generators and turbines. Dam later builds in sh ladder for

the spawning and upstream migration of shad,

herring and others, with added shing piers
and picnic groves on shoreside. Additional
side benet of construction of narrow two-lane
highway across top of dam carried across river,
newly designated U.S. Route 1, older main
road from between Baltimore to the northeast
to Wilmington and Philadelphia.
1929 Baltimore Trust Company tower under construction for ve years completed at 10 Light Street
between East Baltimore and Redwood (previously
German) Streets. Distinctive Art Deco architecture becomes downtown landmark for almost 90
years and citys tallest structure until 1970s with the
USF&G Building in 1971 and Merritt Tower in the
1980s. Has several names designated in its history:
Mathieson Building, O'Sullivan Building, Maryland
National Bank Building, NationsBank Building, and
now Bank of America Tower in 2012. Conversion
project in 2014 to residential usage after B of A
moves main Maryland banking headquarters elsewhere downtown.
Baltimore has 200th Bicentennial Celebration
this year of founding and laying out of original town in 1729/1730 with various events,
parades and publication of anniversary historical commemorative book. Other major anniversary celebrations observed previously in
1880 for 150th year of towns founding and
later Centennial observations in 18961897
for Centennial of incorporation as a city, and
later in 1997 for similar Biccentennial anniversary.
Glenn L. Martin establishes aircraft production company (Glenn L. Martin Company),
east of the City at Middle River, east of Essex,
in southeastern Baltimore County. Designs
and constructs numerous projects in civilian
aviation development and later by 1940, converts to extensive defense work, turning out
many bombers, ghters and other warplanes
during the war eort of World War II beginning in 19391940.
1930
Baltimore Colored Symphony Orchestra organized.
Baltimore Black Sox, Negro League baseball
team plays in rst baseball game of AfricanAmericans held at old Yankee Stadium (built
1923), in The Bronx, northern city borough
in New York City, home of the American
Leagues New York Yankees.
1931

4.1

1900s1940s
Death of philanthropist Henry Walters, (18481931), leaving the famous international art collection amassed by he and his father William
T. Walters, (1820-1894), and the 1905-1909
Gallery building he had built at northwest corner of North Charles Street and West Centre
Street, and an endowment, along with his mansion home across the side alley to the north
on West Mount Vernon Place to the citizens
of the City of Baltimore. Later known as the
Walters Art Gallery and opened to the public
permanently in 1934.
Municipal Oce Building of simple "Art
Deco" limestone construction on 300 block
Holliday Street, between East Saratoga and
Lexington Streets, north of the 186775
Baltimore City Hall. Later renamed in the
1980s for nationally famous and noted city engineer, Abel Wolman, (1892-1989), who designed most of the urban public drinking water
and sewage treatment systems at Back River
and Patapsco treatment plants for the city in
the early 20th century.
First ordinance of a city zoning code passed
by the Baltimore City Council upon earlier enabling act passed by the General Assembly of
Maryland in 1927, for certain larger cities and
towns in the state. Zoning Commission and
Board of Zoning Appeals set up and begins
rst attempts at controlling growth, construction, demolitions and maintenance of city public and private properties.
Replacement with concrete-arched bridge
with steel draw-span constructed across
Cabin Branch and Curtis Creek connecting
Pennington Avenue, (Maryland Route 173),
from the north in the City from Brooklyn
and Curtis Bay to Hawkins Point Road
leading to Hawkins Point with site of old
Fort Armistead and Fort Smallwood Roads
in Anne Arundel County and nearby Arundel
Cove (on lower Curtis Creek to Furnace
Branch and Marley Creek (Maryland)) and
the U.S. Coast Guard shipyard at Curtis
Bay, (established 1899), leading to the Fort
Smallwood Park (Armistead and Smallwood
are City parklands since 1920s with former
Spanish-American War-era batteries/military
installation from mid-1890s) at Rock Point, at
mouth of Patapsco River. Nearby waterfront
resort development/village Rivera Beach of
post-World War II development and Pasadena
further west along Gov. Ritchie Highway,
along with many other villages along the
western Chesapeake Bay county shoreline
and inlets of Stony Creek, Bodkin Creek,
Magothy River, and Severn River south to
Annapolis, county seat and state capital.

57
Curtis Creek Bridge of 1931 replaced again
with higher span in 1977 for Pennington
Avenue-Hawkins Point Road-Fort Smallwood
Roads with additional high concrete bridges
for extension of Baltimore Beltway (Interstate
695) leading to new Francis Scott Key Bridge
connecting the city-circling Beltway over
outer Baltimore Harbor/Patapsco River to
southeast Baltimore County and Sollers Point
with nearby Sparrows Point and North Point
on Patapsco Neck peninsula with nearby
large suburb of Dundalk.
1932
Another edice for the U.S. Post Oce and
Courthouse completed construction on the
east side of Battle Monument Square, between
East Lexington and Fayette Streets of simplied/modernistic Beaux Arts/Classical Revival
style architecture. Replaced previous elaborate Italian Renaissance Revival designed old
U.S. Courthouse/Post Oce of 1889, which
had survived Great Baltimore Fire of 1904,
noted with large clock tower and smaller towers arrayed around mansard roof (and also site
of earlier 186265 U. S. Courthouse to the
east side of the block at northwest corner of
East Fayette and North Streets (later Guilford
Avenue), former site earlier from 1790s of
then landmark twin-steepled First Presbyterian Church visited by 15th President James
Buchanan). Construction expedidited under
severe unemployment situation in the City of
deepening Great Depression under administration of 31st President Herbert Hoover.
1933 Devastating hurricane storm lasting almost
a week in August, does substantial damage to Baltimore and Washingtons budding summer resort
of the small town of Ocean City, in Worcester
County, driving a "storm surge" through the long
sandy barrier island and cutting an inlet/passageway
of fty feet wide and 8 feet deep through between
Assateague Island to the south and now Sinepuxent
Island to the north of the town. Later decades
sees this natural event aecting the growth and residential/commercial development plus increasing the
recreational attractions for swimming, shing and
boating with close access between the back bay
and oceanfront. Additional number of Baltimoreans visit the ocean now with improved transportation
across the Eastern Shore and leads to a decline of
Chesapeake Bay beaches, resorts and towns. Later
Assateague Island across the channel to the south towards Virginias Chincoteague Island is preserved as
a national seashore and an additional Maryland state
park in its primitive natural state.
1934 Walters Art Gallery with collections

58

4 20TH CENTURY
amassed by nanciers/philanthropists William Walters, (1820-1894) and his son Henry Walters, (18481931), who built an Italian Palazzo design during 1905-1909, and opened in 1909 to occasional
public visits. Now their later donation and endowment under will of recently deceased Henry Walters in 1931, opens as an institution under the City
of Baltimore, in the gallery museum located on the
northwest corner of North Charles and West Centre Streets, facing south Washington Place around
the Washington Monument, and also donates to the
new City museum, their mansion, across the side alley to the southern rear which faced north on West
Mount Vernon Place/West Monument Street. A
substantial 1974 addition of modernistic architecture was later added to the western side along West
Centre Street to Park Avenue. In the 1980s, an
additional townhouse/mansion (the former JencksThomas-Gladding Mansion) to the north of the
Gallery, facing the Monument at the southwest
corner of North Charles and West Mount Vernon
Place (West Monument Street), was added for the
new Asian Art collection and renamed Hackerman
House for later city construction builder and philanthropist Willard Hackerman.

1935 United Railways and Electric Company, unied streetcar operator since the 1899 merger of
streetcar lines and builder and the construction on
Pier 4 on East Pratt Street of the Power Plant, completed 1903, enters bankruptcy and business reorganization proceedings. Reemerges and renamed as
the Baltimore Transit Company (BTC), emphasing
increasing use of diesel motor busses and beginning
repaving city streets to eliminate streetcar tracks
and overhead power lines. BTC company stock
owned by National City Lines, a later conglomerate with ownership by General Motors Corporation,
Firestone Tire and Rubber, Standard Oil Company
of California, and Phillips Petroleum with hidden
agenda to gradually eliminate urban rail street transport and substitute gasoline-powered buses (which
introduction and usage increases rapidly after great
strain and wear-and-tear of heavy usage, with fuel
rationing during World War II home-front defense
eorts) eventually to end streetcar rail network by
1963 (Number 8 line from Towson to Catonsville)
in Baltimore.
1938 New structure for Eastern High School
(EHS), all-girls traditional academic-business curriculum school. Located at 33rd Street boulevard
at Loch Raven Boulevard in former Venable Park
(stirs up political controversy) in northeast section
of town next to decade-old City Colleges Castle on
the Hill, all-male high school. Same plans used a
decade earlier for twin sisters new Western High,
builds similar 'H'-shaped, three stories of English
Tudor/Gothic Revival architecture of red brick and

linestone trim in a 30-acre park-like campus. Later

civic sports project for new Memorial Stadium rebuilt in 19501954 for major league baseball's team
of the new Baltimore Orioles and pro footballs team
of the Baltimore Colts across street on previous
site of old Municipal Stadium from 1922, built for
high school/college football. EHS resides here until
sad closure and half-way unsuccessful merger with
new Lake Clifton High School several miles away
in 1984, destroying 140 years of an all-female tradition in secondary education, leaving only Western
High to continue at new 1967 campus shared with
Polytechnic Institute at West Cold Spring Lane and
Falls Road.
1939
Construction and opening of "Art Deco"
styled, the Senator Theatre in Govans on York
Road commercial district in northern outskirts
at intersection with Belvedere Avenue (and
south of newer parallel 1960s by-pass, Northern Parkway). By late 1970s becomes one
of last neighborhood movie theatres in the
city with large main auditorium, but continues to show and premiere new lms. Becomes iconic and landmark due to its architecture and last of its kind, plus establishment in early 1980s of front sidewalk gallery
under marque of pavement blocks with names
and logos of movies with hands or feet of starring actors and actresses (similar to famous
Graumans Chinese Theatre in Hollywood,
motion picture-making district in Los Angeles). Similar architecture of larger even more
elaborate Art Deco features at old Ambassador Theatre on Liberty Heights Avenue near
Howard Park neighborhood in northwest area
which later has an interior-gutting re and later
becomes a fundamentalist Protestant church.
Old Senator celebrates anniversary of opening every year with showing of feature lms
from the 1939-era and also charging ticket
prices of the era (25 cents). After working
30 years for long-planned renovation project,
two additional smaller adjacent auditoriums
added using similar tan brick exteriors in 2013
for more nancial exibility and restoration of
interior under new owners from the Charles
Theatre, located on North Charles Street below North Avenue, in newly designated Station
North neighborhood in Mid-Town.
Formation of a Baltimore County Library Association, Inc. (BCLA) to coordinate various small community libraries in County
towns/suburbs circling around Baltimore City
(like a horseshoe) established by various
womens clubs and civic associations in last
two decades. New BCLA also to lobby

4.1

1900s1940s
Baltimore Countys Board of County Commissioners (then small local governing structure) for an ocial county public library and
constructions of buildings similar to the expansive Enoch Pratt Free Library system in
the City, which county residents had also been
using and taking advantage of since its earlier establishment in 1882-1886, with a new
central library rebuilt downtown in 1931-1933
with many neighborhood branches, later constructions near city-county border. Political and civic pressure builds until post-World
War II period in 1948 with establishment of
Baltimore County Public Library system with
existing branches and many additional improvements in later decades to almost equalize
ancestor/neighbor Enoch Pratt.

1940 - Entire mill village with factory, houses, stores

and school situated on upper Patapsco River's Western Branch between Baltimore County and Carroll
County, originally known as Elysville and previously
known as Alberton for several decades, sold at auction in November to C.R. Daniels Company which
reopens industry and renames town as Daniels. Operations and town endure until disastrous ood and
storm damage from Tropical Storm Agnes in June
1972 which does incredibly heavy damage to Patapsco River Valley, adjacent Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad main western line and throughout state and
Mid-Atlantic region. Daniels town is later razed
with most of residential and commercial structures
with only small industrial and recycling business in
vicinity afterwards.
1941
Liberty ship S.S. Patrick Henry is the rst
of 2,700 such ships (one-sixth of the total built by America) launched September
27 from newly outtted Bethlehem-Faireld
shipyards in Faireld area of South Baltimore on Middle Branch of Patapsco River
of Baltimore Harbor, established under leadership of aluminum, steel and auto industrialist Henry Kaiser, and the Bethlehem
Steel Corporation (who owned and operated
nearby steel mill at Sparrows Point across the
river near Dundalk), with construction revolutionary mass-produced cargo ships on an
automobile-style assembly line that are welded
together rather than using rivets for speed.
Serenaded by the Baltimore Civic Band, with
a special radio address by 32nd President
Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Patrick Henry was
christened by the wife of Vice President Henry
Wallace, Ilo, with Rear Adm. Emory Land,
head of the Maritime Commission giving the
keynote address. One of 14 ships that were

59
launched that special Liberty Fleet Day.
Henrys ships keel was earlier laid April 30th
and was later commissioned to the merchant
marine eet on December 30. By the end of
the war, with maximum eort, the shipyard
was turning out dozens per week (one every 35
hours). Later the Henry would serve throughout the war, helping to win the crucial "Battle
of the Atlantic" against marauding U-boats of
the Nazi German Navy, but after the victory
in 1945, get scrapped over seventeen years
later in 1958. Additional production facilities
were established in nearby Curtis Bay at the
old Pullman-Standard Car Company factory
(which built railroad car wheels) along Curtis Avenue where major ship parts were fabricated and pulled by railroad at-cars several
miles to the waterfront for assembly and welding.
1944 June 6th, "D-Day" invasion of Normandy
in German-occupied France of western Europe during World War II landed at Omaha Beach (one of
six landing areas beaches) under authority of
commanding General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Led
by old Blue and Gray Division of 29th Division,
originally formed for the First World War, made
up of soldiers, Regular Army and National Guard
troops, from Maryland, Virginia, Delaware states in
the Middle Atlantic. Headquarters at Baltimores
Fifth Regiment Armory on North Howard Street
where a military museum endures into the 2010s
of actions and also training base at Fort George G.
Meade in northern Anne Arundel County.
1945 Lt. Jacob Beser, (1921-1992), a Baltimorean and graduate of noted local magnet high
school Baltimore City College, is the only American Army Air Corps ocer to accompany both
crews on the two atomic bombing missions at
the end of the Second World War to Hiroshima
in Japan on (August 6th) on board the famous
"Enola Gay", a B-29, "Super Fortress", a Boeingbuilt long-distance, heavy-bomber airplane with pilot Col. Paul Tibbets and 12-man crew, carrying
the revolutionary new uranium explosive device and
also on the other B-29, "Bockscar" commanded by
Maj. Charles Sweeney, also with 12 crewmembers, carrying the second bomb of plutonium to
Nagasaki, several days later (August 9th). Beser
serves as the radar counter-measures ocer ensuring that Japanese cannot eect any measures
against the dropped bomb. Bomb drop authorized by new 33rd President Harry S Truman after six-year long top-secret "Manhattan Project".
Later Beser returns to Maryland and works for
Westinghouse near the Friendship International Airport (later Baltimore-Washington/Thurgood Marshall International Airport) in northern Anne Arun-

60

4 20TH CENTURY
del County by Linthicum, Maryland.

1948 Baltimore County Public Library system established. County Commissioners appoint 6 citizens
to an Advisory Committee which in a few months
makes recommendations in February 1948 to follow previous Maryland General Assembly law from
1945 mandating county public libraries. Merging
previous various 12 community libraries, beginning
with Reisterstown, which was rst founded in the
county in 1929 and located in the Franklin High
School, others existed with local funds and occasional grants from County Commissioners. Approved by the Board of County Commissioners and
requests Gov. William Preston Lane, (1892-1967,
served 1947-1951) to appoint a County Board of Library Trustees, which later hires its rst Chief Librarian, Richard D. Minnich in January 1949. System grows to present 19 branches with four bookmobiles.
1949 Edgar Allan Poe House on Amity Street
property purchased by the city and opens and operates small historical museum, which later after its
organization in 1964, comes under the sponsorship
of the citys new Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation.

4.2

1950s1990s

1950
Population of city at the highest level in its history of 959,000 at the half-century mark of
the 20th Century according to the Seventeenth
Decennial United States Census of 1950. Additional gures added here now for growing
Baltimore metropolitan area of six suburban
counties now making a mark as a large urban
area including Baltimore County, Anne Arundel County, Carroll County, Howard County,
Harford County and Frederick County in central and northern Maryland.
A new multi-use sports stadium in memory of the casualties and losses of military service-members during the recent World
War II and renamed "Memorial Stadium" begins a major reconstruction project on 33rd
Street Boulevard, northeast of Waverly neighborhood, (and adjacent future ColdstreamHomestead-Montebello neighborhood) over
the old football-bowl of Municipal Stadium,
constructed from 1922 (also sometimes known
as the Baltimore Stadium or Venable Stadium). Constructed in a few months under
the pushing of former Mayor Howard W. Jackson in seven months, controversially in the
former Venable Park, the old stadium with a

horse-shoe shape now with the open end facing north towards 36th Street the surrounding parking lots and the rowhouse community of Ednor Gardens-Lakeside. The new
renovated stadium, constructed with a large
prominent front brick faade with huge aluminum "Art Deco" styled lettering with words
of dedication to the soldiers of the recent
World War II inscribed facing 33rd Street (unlike old Municipals open end with a GrecoRoman columnade on the contrasting southside facing 33rd Street). Later construction
of an upper deck with small mezzanine level
in-between begins in a rush-job project during later winter of 1953 and spring 1954,
when the transfer and movement of the former
St. Louis Browns team of major league baseball to the Chesapeake Bay region is later nally approved by the owners in the American
League during a meeting in the Commodore
Hotel in New York City, during September
1953, with business leader Clarence Miles
who led a local investment group, the City
Soliciter, and Mayor Thomas J. D'Alesandro,
Jr., (1903-1987), [served 1947-1959], after
an earlier disappointing no vote during the
American League spring meeting in Miami
because of owners distaste for controversial
maverick Browns recent owner Bill Veeck
still holding an ownership stake in Baltimore.
When the Baltimore ownership group agrees
later to buy out Veecks majority stock, the
A.L. owners approve the purchase and move
of the half-century old St. Louis franchise.
The relocated team is immediately renamed
the Baltimore Orioles in honor of the local
favorite ball team name in the City since the
1880s.
New pro football team and franchise awarded
to the city in the major National Football
League, which had been founded earlier in
1920 as the American Professional Football
Association (and renamed N.F.L. in 1922).
Returns the name of the Baltimore Colts (continuing the name of the previous Colts team
in the newly founded competing All-America
Football Conference (AAFC) (19461949),
which had a Colts team from the Conferences
second season (replacing the old Miami Seahawks), 1947 to 1949 when the Conference
merged with the old NFL and three AAFC
teams entered the newly merged NFL, including the San Francisco 49ers, Cleveland
Browns and the Colts. New Colts play in the
League briey for one year of 1950 before nancial reasons and ownership collapses. Pro
football team Colts of the AAFC with later
famous quarterback Y.A. Tittle, (who later

4.2

1950s1990s
plays for New York Giants) plays at old bigbowled Municipal Stadium on 33rd Street as
reconstruction project begins 1950 to rebuild
old facility adding an upper deck into later
Memorial Stadium (completed March 1954).
Baltimore Civic Opera Company which had
earlier put on productions during the 1930s
despite the nancial decline and unemployment during the "Great Depression" at the
Maryland, Auditorium Theatres and Lyric
Opera House, reorganized after closing following earlier 1947 death of Eugene Martinet,
(Peabody Institute grad and founder of Martinet Opera School in 1927) who had carried on Company from earlier 1917 establishment during World War I-era and continuing into 1920s under conductor David S.
Melamet, (known for German "Sangerfest"
cultural musical festivals), founded Baltimore
Opera Society. New version of Baltimore
Civic Opera Company (BCOC) continuing
with some similar leaders and members, organized in 1931 with rst production of The
Mikado in October 1932 under Martinet.
Third version of BCOC re-organized November 1948, (with some small productions apparently put on before 1950), incorporated 1950,
with support of Mary M. Martinet, former
conductors widow continuing as director, son
Leigh Martinet as music director, and Grant
U. Stiner business manager, and now inuence of former famous 1930s Metropolitan
Opera Company of New Yorks opera singer
Rosa Ponselle, who had retired to exclusive
wealthy estate Villa Pace in the Greenspring
Valley of northern rural Baltimore County,
later serving as artistic director for several
decades. A City of musical and dramatic
live plays and productions since the rst theatre constructed in the 1780s with later 19th
Century productions in downtown of opera
and musicale plays organized under famous
local civic leader and famous theater owner
John T. Ford, Sr. (of infamous Fords Theater in Washington, D.C. where 16th President Abraham Lincoln was shot in April
1865, and was later owner/manager/producer
of several playhouses in Baltimore, including
landmark 1871 Fords Grand Opera House
on West Fayette Street - between Howard
and Eutaw Streets, endured to 1964), and
also possibly the late 1800s and early 1900s
owner of several local theaters, builder and
impresserio, James L. Kernan, builder of the
apex of hospitality and hostelery with an art
gallery and live theater entertainment by construction of his landmark Kernans Hotel, in
1903 (later renamed Congress Hotel after

61
Kernans death in 1912), along with adjacent/connected Maryland Theatre and around
the corner, the elaborate faaded Auditorium
Theatre (now closed/decrepit Mayfair Theatre
for motion pictures facing Howard Street) on
northwest corner of North Howard and West
Franklin Streets, his triple million dollar enterprises). Reorganized third Baltimore Civic
Opera (Civic dropped from title in 1970)
begins 1950 season with Verdi's Aida production at auditorium at old Maryland Casualty Company's Rotunda oce building on
West 40th Street and Keswick Road, (between
Roland Park and Hampden neighborhoods),
the next year moves to largest city public high
school auditorium at old Baltimore Polytechnic Institute on East North Avenue and North
Calvert Streets, then returns 1952 to largest
seating at old Lyric. Many productions of expense and large casts of over a hundred in previous half-century at landmark Lyric Opera
House (1894) on Mount Royal Avenue. Observed 50th Silver Anniversary in 2000, but
unfortunately later hit by unusually devastating
nancial troubles during Great Recession of
2008 and Company is closed in bankruptcy,
joining earlier Maryland Ballet or Baltimore
Ballet.
New larger international airport laid out and
constructed by the City of Baltimore in northern Anne Arundel County at site of small
village of Friendship, (southwest of Glen
Burnie, south of Linthicum) giving the air terminal its new name: Friendship International
Airport, (later renamed in the early 1970s as
Baltimore-Washington International Airport
(BWI) when taken over by the larger resources
of the State of Marylands new Department of
Transportation. Dedicated by city and state
ocials joined by 33rd President Harry S.
Truman, replaces old previous Logan Field
from the 1920s, and nearby Harbor Field in
the early 1940s and adjacent larger Baltimore
Municipal Airport in the late 1940s, along
north shore of Patapsco River, near old Colgate Creek (paved over and partially lledin), now present site of two shipping terminal facilities: Dundalk Marine Terminal and
the later adjacent Sea Girt Marine Terminal
for the Port of Baltimore. Airport has large
tan brick terminal building with iconic popular
observation platform on the roof of one of the
wings/concourses used by many curious Maryland citizens watching the planes. Ties city
into world air travel and commerce for next
half-century and sees tremendous growth with
compete re-building and expansion of facilities, joining regional airports of Washington

62

4 20TH CENTURY
National Airport and Dulles International Airport for national capital.
New headquarters banking building constructed for Baltimore Federal Savings and
Loan Association, largest S. & L. in the region
in a distinctive Georgian architecture-styled
building at southwest corner of East Fayette
Street and St. Paul Street, a block north
of junction with Light Street. Nicknamed
Colonial Corner of red brick and white trim
with cupola, structure stands out amidst early
20th Century (post-1904 Great Baltimore Fire
downtown oce buildings, banks and commercial structures.

1951 1952
First Negro (now Black/African American male students
integrate the Baltimore City Public Schools system, entering the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute in the fall of
1952, after long consideration by moderate and progressive members of the citys Board of School Commissioners. Polytechnic is a magnet, specialized mathematics,
science, engineering and technology public high school,
and the case is made not to try and duplicate a similar institution just for Negro students. Predates by two
years later, the U.S. Supreme Court landmark decision in
Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas and
other cases, by May 1954.[17]

Negotiations concluded in October between

group of Baltimore businessmen led by
Clarence Miles with baseball team owner Bill
Veeck to bring the American League baseball
franchise of the old St. Louis Browns to Baltimore for the following 19541955 season,
marking the return to major league baseball
after fty-one years.

1953
B&O Transportation Museum, under the sponsorship of
the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company opens at the
former Mount Clare Station and Shops, along West Pratt
Street with the old 1884 Roundhouse and workshops
in the Poppleton/Union Square/Mount Clare section of
southwest Baltimore. Later renamed as the B&O Railroad Museum and established as a private agency to preserve the legacy of the old famous Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad under the original sponsorship of the Baltimore
and Ohio Railroad, later CSX Transportation.

Third incarnation of a pro football franchise

and team with a new Baltimore Colts awarded
to the city in the National Football League
(NFL) from the former franchise Dallas Texans from one unsuccessful year in the Lone

Star State. Ownership given to local Carroll

Rosenbloom and team has several losing but
building seasons until Coach Weeb Eubank
until 1958 and 1959 with then winning NFL
championships in iconic games versus the New
York Giants aided by famous players such as
quarterback John Unitas. Team plays in the
nally reconstructed and completed Memorial
Stadium on 33rd Street near Waverly in northeast Baltimore, and builds practice facility
in northwest Baltimore County near Owings
Mills.
1954
St. Louis Browns baseball team in the
American League completes business deal
previous November 1953 and relocates to Baltimore and is renamed the new Baltimore
Orioles, returning the city to the ranks of
major league baseball, since 1903. Old
Baltimore Orioles team of the minor-league
International League here since 19031911,
19161953, relocates to Havana, in Cuba. Entire city in delirium with Opening Day parade
in April through downtown with new/old team
members and ceremonies with Vice President
Richard M. Nixon throwing out the rst ball in
rst game versus Chicago White Sox.
Cylburn Wildower Preserve and Garden
Center formed to preserve and advance the
gardens around the former Cylburn mansion
of stone Victorian-style architecture and home
of industrialist and Quaker stalwart Elisha
Tyson on Greenspring Avenue, north of Druid
Hill Park, later renamed "Cylburn Arboretum".
Final and full Desegregation of the Baltimore City Public School System, put into
practice with Fall opening of public schools
by moderate and progressive members of
the citys Board of School Commissioners in
September, after previous May 1954s U.S.
Supreme Court unanimous decision. Process goes peacefully through most of the city
with exception of demonstrations and crowds
of resisters outside Southern High School in
Federal Hill/Old South Baltimore, and old Patterson Park High School (on Ellwood Street)
in southeastern part of town.
Baltimore-Washington Parkway opens between two major cities in central Maryland.
1955 Growing national civil rights protests across
The South and the nation comes to Baltimore with
demonstration led by the local aliate Congress of
Racial Equality (CORE), at largest of local chainstore merchant Reads Drug Store (known by the

4.2

1950s1990s
1970s as Rite-Aid), with their iconic lunch counters at downtown stores location at southeastern corner of North Howard and West Lexington Streets,
amidst many large department stores and movie theatre district.

1956 Admittance of the Frederick Douglass High

School (formerly Colored High School and Training School before 1925, when founded in 1883),
the Paul Laurence Dunbar Community High School,
and the Carver Vocational-Technical High School,
from the formerly racially segregated Baltimore
City Public Schools system (since the 1860s to
the May 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education
of Topeka, Kansas decision by the United States
Supreme Court) into the Maryland Scholastic Association (MSA) which had been founded in 1919 (by
Dr. Phillip H. Edwards athletic coach and later
noted Principal of the Baltimore City College in the
1930s and 1940s along with some other coaches
and principals) for central Maryland area private/parochial/independent secondary schools and
the high schools of Baltimore City (only a few
high schools then existed in other suburban counties such as Baltimore, Harford, Carroll, Howard
and Frederick Counties and the distance/expense
with streetcars, inter-urban electric commuter trains
or highway buses then used for weekly competitions was prohibitive. The MSA was one of the
rst public-private high school athletic leagues in
the country and its championships long constituted
a state championship. The later Maryland Public
Secondary Schools Athletic Association (MPSSA)
was not established until the latter 1950s as a
burst of high schools opened in surrounding Baltimore County with beginning athletic programs
for boys only, and spread to a state-wide system
which competed with the older senior league until the early 1990s, when a new Baltimore City superintendent of schools, Walter Amprey, who graduated and began his teaching career in the city,
spent most of his supervising/administrative career
in the suburbs system, forced the withdrawal of the
city schools (especially including athletic, all-male
powerhouses City, Poly, and the co-ed neighborhood schools: Douglass, Dunbar, (previously colored schools) Forest Park, Patterson, Southern,
Edmondson, Northern, Northwestern, Southwestern, Lake Clifton, Walbrook, plus co-ed vocationaltechnical institutions at Merganthaler and Carver
and all-girls Western High School and Eastern High
School) became part of the now larger state league
with its wider membership and reach now into all 23
counties of Maryland with play-os scheduled annually at the University of Maryland at College Park.
The old shrunken MSA now re-organized as two private school leagues with one for boys and another for
girls sports. Although unfortunately losing its exemplary private-public athletic partnership and compe-

63
tition, rare in the U.S.A., Baltimore is also one of the
rst school systems in the nation to peacefully integrate its high school athletic programs and led to a
great advance in racial harmony in the City in the
next two decades unlike some Southern and border
states which endured hostility and protests into the
1980s.
1957
Rapidly growing outer suburbs in Harford
County in the northeast Baltimore metro
area establishes a junior college (later called
community college), with the opening in
September of the Harford Junior College with
116 students on the campus of the Bel Air
High School in the county seat of Bel Air.
Growth to 354 students four years later and
later relocating several miles east in 1964 to
Churchville on Thomas Run Road to a large
tract for a park-like campus with construction of several academic and ancilary buildings. Name changed to Harford Community
College in 1971.
Extinguishing on August 14 of last gas streetlight in the city which was the rst in America
to have gas lighting outside in 1817. Modernization process began earlier in decade with
replacement with mercury vapor lights. Old
lamps sent to Cape May, New Jersey and
Disneyland in California.
1960 - In January, employees of the Social Security Administration, rst established in 1935 under
the "Social Security Act" of programs of the "New
Deal" administration of 32nd President Franklin D.
Roosevelt, begin moving from their three-decadesold headquarters at the Candler Building on Market
Place and East Pratt Street, across from the waterfront Basin (later the famed "Inner Harbor") of the
Baltimore Harbor. New suburban campus of several modern oce buildings is constructed in the
Woodlawn area (formerly known as Powhatan) of
western Baltimore County, just o the route of the
under-construction "Baltimore Beltway" (Interstate
695). Central access route through the area is designated Security Boulevard. Social Security becomes
one of the major employers of the county and metro
region. Old Candler Building had originally been
the regional headquarters of the Coca Cola Bottling
Company centered in Atlanta, Georgia, of which
Asa Griggs Candler, (1851-1929), whom the building was named for, was the prime mover, founder
and industrialist. Candler Building still exists and
renovated by 2010s.
1961 1962 -

64

4 20TH CENTURY

1963
Center Stage (theater) opens on East North
Avenue, (in future renamed Station North
community by 2010s), in converted commercial buildings between townhouses between
North Charles and St. Paul Streets. Second
major theatre in downtown/mid-town city besides the new 1967 Morris A. Mechanic Theatre at Charles Center on southwest corner of
Charles and Baltimore.
Last running of electric streetcars in Baltimore on 14 August when #8 car to Catonsville
turns into Irvington car barn of Baltimore
Transit Company in southwestern city at 6:30
am. Groups of streetcar and railroad enthusiasts/historians ride special car taking photos,
recording sounds and interviewing conductors
with surrounding news media. By early 1990s
urban rail transit returns in modernized fashion known as "light rail", with a metro area
central line from Glen Burnie to Hunt Valley,
using larger more complex cars, on streets and
separate tracks.
1964
The News American newspaper reorganized
and merged begins publication, by owners Hearst Corporation of previous MondaySaturday daily Baltimore News-Post and old
Sunday weekly of Baltimore American whose
antecedents go back to rst daily newspaper
published in the city in 1773 by William Goddard.
New Holiday Inn chain/syndicate of hotels/motels constructed at the southwest corner
of South Howard and West Lombard Streets,
opposite Baltimore Civic Center/1st Mariner
Arena. It is the rst structure to have a permanent revolving, roof-top restaurant in America, with views of Inner Harbor and downtown
business district, plus new Charles Center to
the northeast.
1965 First major suspension in citys history of
all daily newspapers publications in city against the
Baltimore Sun and Baltimore News-American" during Spring March June, with striking reporters
and editors later publishing their own strike papers
Baltimore Banner and Baltimore Herald temporarily.
1966 Baltimore Orioles win their rst American
League championship and go on to win the rst
four games of the World Series against the National
League and the Los Angeles Dodgers.
1967 First major job action with several weeks
long labor strike against Baltimore City Public

Schools near end of school year, in Spring 1967.

Teachers arrested outside schools on picket lines,
with formation of rival Baltimore Teachers Union
of more radical American Federation of Teachers
and the older, 120 years old, "Public School Teachers Association", (associated with old-line National
Education Association).
1968
Baltimore riot of 1968
Baltimore American Indian Center is established.
1970 Milton B. Allen elected as States Attorney
for Baltimore City and becomes the rst African
American elected to a citywide oce.[18]
1971 William Donald Schaefer becomes mayor.
1973 Sister city relationship established with
Gbarnga, Liberia.[19]
1974 Baltimore municipal strike of 1974
1976 Maryland Science Center opens at Baltimores inner harbor. 11 Tall ships visit inner harbor
as part of Americas Bicentennial Celebration.
1979
Baltimore Convention Center opens.
Baltimore School for the Arts founded.
Celebration of 250th Anniversary of founding
of Baltimore Town in 1729/1730.
1980
Harborplace opens, under leadership of James
Rouse.
Baltimore Area Convention & Visitors Association formed, later known as Visit Baltimore.
Population: 787,000 people (approximate)
in gures from Twentieth Dicennial United
States Census of 1980.
1981
National Aquarium in Baltimore opens on former Pier 3 on East Pratt Street facing Inner
Harbor Museum has 5,600 animals to exhibit
which grows to about 17,000 by25 years later.
Famous incident with Mayor William Donald
Schaefer swimming in outside dolphin pool if
the museum was not opened by a certain original construction complete deadline. Media and photographers cluster about for great
iconic scene as Schaefer comes out with rubber duckie wearing old 19th Century style
bathing suit and straw-boater hat.

65
Baltimore Museum of Industry opens o Key
Highway of north side of old South Baltimore/Locust Point/Whetstone Point peninsula on shoreline of North West Branch of
Patapsco River and Baltimore Harbor.
1982 Joseph Meyerho Symphony Hall opens o
Cathedral Street and Maryland Avenue in northwest
corner of Mount Vernon-Belvedere-Mount Royal
mid-town neighborhood. New home for Baltimore
Symphony Orchestra.
1983
Baltimore Metro Subway begins operating.
Great Blacks in Wax Museum established.
Baltimore Business Journal established as a
weekly tabloid in March.
1986 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People headquarters relocates to
Baltimore.[20]
1987 January, Clarence H. (Du) Burns, President of the Baltimore City Council, becomes the
rst African American mayor of Baltimore City,
succeeding William Donald Schaefer when he is
inaugurated Governor of Maryland in December.
In NovemberKurt Schmoke defeats burns and becomes rst African American elected as mayor of
Baltimore.
1989 Contemporary Museum Baltimore founded.
1990 Muslim Community Cultural Center
established.[21][22]
1992
Baltimore Light Rail modern streetcar system
begins operating.
Oriole Park at Camden Yards baseball stadium
southwest of Inner Harbor o Russell Street
(leading to Baltimore-Washington Parkway),
South Howard Street and Camden Streets
opens after 2 year construction project.[23]
1995 Fells Point Creative Alliance, a coalition of
artists and supporters, established by volunteers in
Fells Point as a hybrid gallery, performance spaces,
artists studios and guild. First located temporarily in a neighborhood rowhouse, later moves to
an old Loyal Order of Moose lodge building/hall
in Highlandtown, then to old trolley car barn on
Thames Street facing waterfront and old Recreation/City/Broadway Pier. Temporarily at old Pep
Boys auto parts store in Highlandtown again, nally
begins $4.5 million campaign for converting old
Patterson Theatre on Eastern Avenue, at East Avenue, which will cost $3.6 million. Helped by grants

obtained from government art and humanities programs through state senator Perry Skas and U.S.
Senator Barbara Mikulski, in addition to continued private fund-raising with matching grants. Old
Patterson movie theatre built 1910 as silent movies
gallery and dance hall, razed 1929 and replaced by
current building, closes for regular second-run ics
in 1995. New Creative Alliance space opens May
16, 2003, with 2 art galleries, 2 performing spaces,
200 seat theatre, classrooms, media lab, living/work
studios, oces, sidewalk caf, becomes revitalizer
to Highlandtown commercial/business district.
1996 Cleveland Browns professional football team
from the old All-America Football Conference of
19461949, and the National Football League move
their team by long-time owner Art Modell and are
renamed the Baltimore Ravens, playing their rst
two seasons at old Colts Palace, the Memorial Stadium on 33rd Street. Later moves into new eld o
Russell Street and Baltimore-Washington Parkway
near Camden Yards, at "P.S.I.-Net Stadium".
1998 Ravens Stadium opens with name of company of P.S.I.-Net.

5 21st century
2000
National Katy Memorial is cast and constructed of bronze on stone base in newly
re-developed Harbor East area, (southeast of
Inner Harbor) at the foot of President Street
boulevard in International Circle to commemorate Polish Army ocers murdered en masse
by Soviet Russians under dictator Joseph
Stalin after invading eastern part of country
following original invasion of Nazi Germany
under Adolf Hitler from the west, beginning
World War II in September 1939. Bodies
buried in the forest in mass graves found 1941
by Germans, (after their further invasion of
the Soviet Union following later), who were
originally blamed. Massacre caused by attempt of Soviets to decimate eective antiCommunist leaders and intelligentsia for future post-war occupation. Statue artwork and
memorial plaques sponsored by local Baltimore community of Polish-Americans.
2001 January 28, 2001, Baltimore Ravens, the
transferred franchise from former Cleveland Browns
in 1994 with owner Art Modell win rst championship for 2000 season (Superbowl XXXV) in the
National Football League, at new M&T Bank Stadium (Ravens Stadium). First pro football trophy
since old Baltimore Colts in 1958, 1959, 1968, 1970
(Superbowl III).

66

2002
The Portal (community center) opens.
The Wire ctional cable television program series set in Baltimore about city police ghting
local drug dealers with monitored, recorded
phone conversations begins national broadcast
on HBO (Home Box Oce).
2005 Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African-American History & Culture opens on
northeast corner of President Street boulevard and
East Pratt Street, just west of the historic Star Spangled Banner Flag House of Mary Pickersgill, in
Jonestown/"Old Town community, north of Little
Italy, east of Inner Harbor. Benetted from use
of state and city funds plus bequest from estate of
noted local black industrialist, nancier and philanthropist, Reginald F. Lewis (19421993).
2006 The Baltimore Examiner begins publication
as a group of independent tabloid newspapers beginning with a Washington Examiner begun by the new
proprietors Philip Anschutz of Clarity Media Group
of the San Francisco Examiner which they bought
earlier from the Hearst Corporation, (agship paper
founded by late magnate William Randolph Hearst),
which in turn had purchased the more economically viable competing paper San Francisco Chronicle. Examiner paper continues publication and provides alternative and more politically conservative
editorial views in the city for about two years and recruits many new reporters/columnists/editors from
old Baltimore Sun of media chain syndicate Chicago
Tribune Company. Has oces on East Pratt Street
facing Inner Harbor with name of paper emblazoned
on top of oce building.
2007 Sheila Dixon, (born 1953), President of the
Baltimore City Council succeeds to and becomes
citys rst female Mayor, with election and inauguration of two-term incumbent Martin O'Malley as
Governor of Maryland in Annapolis.
2008 Hilton Baltimore, a designated convention hotel built across Camden Street (and between
South Howard and Paca Streets) from Camden
Street Station (of old Baltimore and Ohio Railroad),
now the Sports Legends Museum, and adjacent to
Oriole Park at Camden Yards baseball stadium and
sports complex to the south and the Baltimore Convention Center to the north.
2009 Sheila Dixon trial for corruption and misusing retail gift cards donated for charitable cases for
her personal use. She is convicted and is later removed from oce as mayor.
"Great Recession of 2009 causes major unemployment in Baltimore and caused economic problems for various arts and cultural

REFERENCES

organizations and eventual bankruptcy for the

local long-time Baltimore Opera Company.
2010
Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, (born 1970), also
previously Vice President, then President
of Baltimore City Council (and previously
youngest when rst elected as Councilmember) becomes Mayor.[24]
2010 Baltimore beating
Population: 620,961, recorded for the total
residents in the City from the United States Dicennial Census of 2010.
2011
"Occupy Baltimore" campaign begins, setting up downtown demonstrations and squatter
camps at various locations protesting for employment, against large nancial institutions
and lack of economic equality in America.
Ocer James Fowler ticket incident
Lyric Opera Baltimore further endowed with
large bequest from Art and wife Patricia Modell, owners of pro football team Baltimore
Ravens since move from Ohio with Cleveland
Browns in 1994 to renovate and expand old
1894 Lyric Theatre on Mount Royal Avenue
in northern part of Mount Vernon-BelvedereMount Royal mid-town neighborhood. additional title and renamed as Art and Patricia
Modell Performing Arts Center at the Lyric
Opera House
2012 2012 St. Patricks Day beating
2013 BaltimoreCode.org released.[25]

6 See also
History of Baltimore
List of mayors of Baltimore
National Register of Historic Places listings in Baltimore, Maryland
List of museums in Baltimore

7 References
[1] John Calvin Colson (Winter 1986). The Fire Company
Library Associations of Baltimore, 18381858. Journal
of Library History 21.
[2] Baltimore, Encyclopdia Britannica (11th ed.), New
York, 1910, OCLC 14782424

67

[3] US Newspaper Directory. Chronicling America. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress. Retrieved September
15, 2012.

[22] Pluralism Project. Baltimore, Maryland. Directory of

Religious Centers. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard
University. Retrieved October 14, 2013.

[4] Jedidiah Morse (1797), Baltimore, The American

gazetteer, Boston: At the presses of S. Hall, and Thomas
& Andrews

[23] Alan Greenblatt (2006), Downtown Renaissance, CQ

Researcher 16 (24)(subscription required)

[5] Charles Varle (1833), A complete view of Baltimore, Baltimore: S. Young

[6] Charles Con Jewett (1851), Notices of public libraries in
the United States of America, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian
[7] William Fry (1812), Frys Baltimore directory, for the year
1812, Baltimore: Printed by B.W. Sower, & Co. for the
publisher
[8] History of Fort McHenry. U.S. National Park Service.
Retrieved September 15, 2012.
[9] C. Keenan (1822), The Baltimore directory for 1822 &
'23, Baltimore: Printed by R.J. Matchett
[10] Davies Project. American Libraries before 1876.
Princeton University. Retrieved September 15, 2012.
[11] Joseph Lawrence Yeatman (Fall 1985). Literary Culture
and the Role of Libraries in Democratic America: Baltimore, 18151840. Journal of Library History 20.
[12] J. Thomas Scharf (1881), History of Baltimore city and
county, from the earliest period to the present day: including biographical sketches of their representative men,
Philadelphia: L.H. Everts

[24] Meet the Mayors. Washington, D.C.: United States

Conference of Mayors. Retrieved March 30, 2013.
[25] Sunlight Cities. Washington, D.C.: Sunlight Foundation. July 17, 2013. Retrieved October 14, 2013.

8 Further reading
8.1 Published in the 19th century
David Brewster, ed.
(1830).
Baltimore.
Edinburgh Encyclopdia. Edinburgh: William
Blackwood.
Baltimore, Md., American Advertising Directory,
for Manufacturers and Dealers in American Goods,
New York: Jocelyn, Darling & Co., 1831, OCLC
1018684
Henry Schenck Tanner (1837), Map of Baltimore,
The American Traveller (3rd ed.), Philadelphia: The
author

[13] Eugene Fauntleroy Cordell (1903), Chronology, The

medical annals of Maryland, 17991899, Baltimore:
[Press of Williams & Wilkins company]

Henry Schenck Tanner (1841), Baltimore, A geographical, historical and statistical view of the central or middle United States, Philadelphia: H. Tanner, Jr., OCLC 1525712

[14] Michel S. Laguerre (2005). Hatians in the United

States. In Melvin Ember, et al. Encyclopedia of Diasporas. Springer. p. 828+. ISBN 978-0-306-48321-9.

Woodss Baltimore City Directory. Baltimore: John

W. Woods.

[15] The Baltimore city directory, for 185859, Baltimore, Md:

John W. Woods, 1858
[16] Baltimore (1881), 17301880: Celebration of the 150th
Anniversary of the Settlement of Baltimore Town, Baltimore: Printed by order of the Mayor and City Council
[17] Integration of Baltimore Polytechnic High School.
Maryland Civil Rights.org. Archived from the original on
October 6, 2007. Retrieved 2007-10-11.
[18] http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2003-02-13/news/
0302130334_1_allen-state-attorney-baltimore
[19] Explaining Baltimores Complicated Relationship With
Its Sister Cities. Atlantic Cities. April 21, 2014.
[20] Paul T Hellmann (2004). Historical Gazetteer of the
United States. Taylor & Francis.
[21] Muslim Community Cultural Center of Baltimore.
Muslim Community of Baltimore. Retrieved October 14,
2013.

186768, 186869
1870, 1871, 1872, 1873, 1874, 1875, 1876,
1877, 1878, 1879
1880, 1881, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1886
J. Thomas Scharf (1874), The chronicles of Baltimore: being a complete history of Baltimore town
and Baltimore city from the earliest period to the
present time, Baltimore: Turnbull Bros., OCLC
11971847
Baltimore, Appletons Illustrated Hand-Book of
American Cities, New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1876
Carroll D. Wright (1894), Slums of Baltimore,
Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia, Special Report of the Commissioner of Labor, Washington,
D.C.: Government Printing Oce

68

8.2

Published in the 20th century

Robert C. Brooks (1901), Baltimore, Bibliography

of Municipal Problems and City Conditions, Municipal Aairs 5 (2nd ed.), New York: Reform Club,
OCLC 1855351
Edward Hungerford (1913), Monumental City,
The Personality of American Cities, New York:
McBride, Nast & Company
Andrew Cunningham McLaughlin and Albert Bushnell Hart, ed. (1914). Baltimore. Cyclopedia of
American Government 1. D. Appleton and Company.
Polks Baltimore City Directory. Baltimore: R.L.
Polk & Co.
1922, 1923
Federal Writers Project (1940). Baltimore.
Maryland: a Guide to the Old Line State. American
Guide Series. NY: Oxford University Press.
Robert I. Vexler (1975), Howard B. Furer, ed., Baltimore: a Chronological & Documentary History,
16321970, American Cities Chronology Series,
Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana Publications, ISBN 0379-00602-2
Baltimore: The Hidden City, National Geographic
Magazine (Washington, D.C.) 147, 1975 via Gale
(subscription required)
Ory Mazar Nergal, ed. (1980), Baltimore,
Encyclopedia of American Cities, New York: E.P.
Dutton, OL 4120668M
George Thomas Kurian (1994), Baltimore, World
Encyclopedia of Cities, 1: North America, Santa
Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO (fulltext via Open
Library)

8.3

Published in the 21st century

Oren M. Levin-Waldman (2004). The Political

Economy of the Living Wage: A Study of Four Cities.
M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 978-0-7656-3705-5. (Baltimore, Detroit, Los Angeles, New Orleans)

External links
Digital Public Library of America. Works related to
Baltimore, various dates
Europeana. Items related to Baltimore, Maryland,
various dates.

Coordinates: 391700N 763700W / 39.283333N

76.616667W

EXTERNAL LINKS

69

10
10.1

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

Text

Timeline of Baltimore Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline%20of%20Baltimore?oldid=642972325 Contributors: WhisperToMe, Topbanana, Woohookitty, Tabletop, Mandarax, Tim!, Lockley, Vegaswikian, Naraht, Ground Zero, Bgwhite, RussBot, Grafen,
Welsh, Chris the speller, Jprg1966, Colonies Chris, BillFlis, PRRfan, ChrisCork, ShelfSkewed, Cydebot, JustAGal, Nick Number, Magioladitis, KConWiki, R'n'B, Squids and Chips, Yintan, Marylandstater, Sfan00 IMG, Niceguyedc, Solar-Wind, SchreiberBike, TwoPairsOfBoots, TutterMouse, Tassedethe, Yobot, Ulric1313, Citation bot, LilHelpa, The Banner, GenQuest, FrescoBot, M2545, Moonraker,
Cnwilliams, Cowlibob, John of Reading, Dewritech, Bollyje, Thouny, Ego White Tray, BG19bot, Gorthian, DPL bot, Hamish59, BattyBot, Mogism, Epicgenius, Jamesmcmahon0, Jodosma, DavidLeighEllis, Duane E. Tressler, YosefKuperman, Kahtar, GinAndChronically,
LukasMatt, Skippypeanuts and Anonymous: 35

10.2

Images

File:1867_Mitchell_Map_of_Baltimore,_Maryland_-_Geographicus_-_Baltimore-mitchell-1867.jpg
Source:
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