Baltimore, Maryland

“ Her territory extends on both sides of a great inland water communication, and is at the natural Atlantic outlet, by railway, of the Valley of the West. Baltimore in the Union is sure to be inferior to Philadelphia and New York: Baltimore out of the Union is sure to become a great commercial city. In every way, whether we regard her own people or their usefulness to other States, I think the interests of Maryland would be promoted by secession. ”

“ Good husbandry and unshackled enterprise throughout Maryland and Virginia will astonish Baltimore by an increase of her population and commerce beyond the brightest speculative dreams. The full resources of Delaware Bay are far from being developed. Yet Philadelphia and Baltimore are forever precluded from competing with New York, both by their greater distance from open water and the comparative inferiority of the interior tracts with which they have ready communication. ”

“ Baltimore is supposed to have, at this time, contained about sixteen thousand inhabitants. Though not the capital of the state, it is the largest town in Maryland; and, after Philadelphia and New York, is the most considerable place of trade in North America. [It is built round the head of a bay or inlet of the river Patuxent, and about eight miles above its junction with the [Pg 84] Chesapeak.] The plan of the town is somewhat similar to that of Philadelphia. Most of the streets cross each other at right angles. ”

“ When the Revolutionary War broke out, the citizens of Baltimore showed that they were not a bit behind the other colonies of America in their spirit of independence.
81. Summary.—King Charles the First of England gave Lord Baltimore, an English Catholic, a part of Virginia and named it Maryland, in honor of his wife, Queen Mary. A company of emigrants came out to Maryland in 1634. It was the first settlement in America in which all Christian people had entire liberty to worship God in whatever way they thought right. That liberty they owed to Lord Baltimore. ”

“ The establishment of Charles II. as king fully restored Lord Baltimore
as proprietary in Maryland, and for a long time the colony enjoyed much
peace and prosperity. In 1660 it boasted twelve thousand inhabitants, in
1665 sixteen thousand, in 1676 twenty thousand. Plantation life was
universal, there being no town worthy the name till Baltimore, which,
laid out in 1739, grew very slowly. Tobacco was the main production, too
nearly the only one, the planters sometimes actually suffering for food,
so that the raising of cereals needed to be enforced by law. ”

“ I am right sorry that prudence forbids my chronicling here a name which will always stand high on my muster-roll of friends; but the memory of almost any Englishman who has visited Baltimore will fill up the blank that I must leave perforce.
It seemed that there was a choice of two routes into Secessia. The first—in many respects the easiest, and far the most traveled—lay through the lower counties of Maryland: the narrow peninsula on which Leonardstown is situated forming the starting point, whence the blockade-runner took to cross the Lower Potomac—there, from four to eight miles wide. ”

“ I like the cuts very much, and I hope both those and Young People—may it flourish for a long time!—will always remain as nice as now.
Louis G. E.
Baltimore, Maryland.
I wish to tell the boys and girls that take this beautiful little paper about our sesquicentennial, or the one-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of Baltimore. On Monday, October 11, the procession illustrated the history of Baltimore. In one wagon was an Indian scene, to represent Indian life. In another wagon was a large vessel with men in it in early Spanish costume, to represent Christopher Columbus and his crew. ”

“ Baltimore, by the industry and commercial enterprise of her citizens, has grown out of the sea into a great commercial city, has diffused the benefits of commerce into every section of the State, by making a great demand for the products of our soil and industry, and a consequent increase of price, whereby every foot of land in Maryland is made more valuable, and whereby the interest of every part of the State is identified with theirs ”

“ I hardly ever met with it during two months that I remained in Maryland.
Amongst the inhabitants of Baltimore are to be found English, Irish, Scotch, and French. The Irish appear to be most numerous; and many of the principal merchants in town are in the number. Since the war, a great many French have arrived both from France and from the West India Islands. With a few exceptions the inhabitants are all engaged in trade, which is closely attended to. They are mostly plain people, sociable however amongst themselves, and very friendly and hospitable towards strangers. ”

“ The question of the fidelity of the State to the Union was first tried by the arrival at Baltimore of a certain Commissioner from the State of Mississippi, who visited that city with the object of inducing secession. It must be understood that Baltimore is the commercial capital of Maryland, whereas Annapolis is the seat of Government and the legislature—or is, in other terms, the political capital. Baltimore is a city containing 230,000 inhabitants, and is considered to have as strong and perhaps as violent a mob as any city in the Union. ”

“ The characteristic of Baltimore architecture is solidity and convenience. The public buildings of interest in this connection are the city hall, the post office, the city jail, the Peabody Institute, the Johns Hopkins Hospital, the Enoch Pratt Free Library, the Masonic Temple, and, most beautiful of all, the courthouse, of white marble, in classic Renaissance style, with interesting mural paintings by Blashfield and Turner, and a bust of Severn Teackle Wallis, the distinguished Maryland jurist and man of letters. ”

“ From the time that Lord Baltimore landed on her shores to the present day no public man has disgraced the fair record or blurred a page of the history of Maryland. And, indeed, the beginning of her civilized days was an eminently fit prelude to her whole subsequent career. From out of the first colony established on the banks of the Chesapeake flowed the doctrines of religious toleration and equal religious rights to all men irrespective of clime and color, at a moment when witch-burning fires lighted up the settlements of Massachusetts. ”

“ The editor of the Baltimore American, whom we had become acquainted with when doing picket duty on the railroad near Annapolis Junction, in the autumn of 1861, was there to welcome us. After breakfast we fell in line, marched up to the office of the Baltimore [Pg 128] American and the band played all the national airs. Every one made a speech. We gave three cheers and a tiger a number of times and then we marched back to the wharf again. This reception was arranged for by the 2d Maryland, in memory of the Pollocksville breakfast we gave them May 17th, 1862, down in North Carolina. ”

“ Certainly Baltimore sought the free exercise of his own religion, and was prepared to practise the toleration he demanded, but no legal provision for toleration was made until the laws of 1649. The power of the proprietor and the composition of the colony were sufficient to secure it. Baltimore married Anne, daughter of George Mynne of Hertingfordbury, Hertfordshire. He was succeeded by his son Cecil; a second son, Leonard [q. v.] , was the first governor of Maryland.
Baltimore's works are: 1. ”

“ No cause except slavery can he assigned for this wonderful difference, for the colonists of Maryland were distinguished for education, intelligence, and gentle culture. Lord Baltimore was a statesman and philanthropist, and his colony was a free representative government, which was the first to repudiate the doctrine of taxation without representation, and the first to introduce religious toleration. ”

“ I then telegraphed to the President as follows:
"Baltimore, Maryland, April 20, 1861.
"To President Lincoln.
"Every effort will be made to prevent parties leaving the city to molest troops marching to Washington. Baltimore seeks only to protect herself. Governor Hicks has gone to Annapolis, but I have telegraphed to him.
"Geo. Wm. Brown, Mayor of Baltimore."
(p. 63) After the receipt of the dispatch from Messrs. Bond, Dobbin and Brune, another committee was sent to Washington, consisting of Messrs. ”

“ The new-comers do not seem to have felt any special gratitude to Baltimore for his tolerance, and were prepared to make common cause against him with the inhabitants of the Isle of Kent and other disaffected persons.
It seemed at first as if the authority of Parliament and of the Protectorate would be accepted in Maryland as quietly as in the other colonies. In 1652 Stone and apparently all the settlers acknowledged the authority of the parliamentary commissioner’s. The commissioners did not formally revoke Baltimore’s patent ”

“ According to Lord Baltimore’s charter his northern boundary was the fortieth parallel of latitude, which runs a little north of the site of Philadelphia. The latitude was marked by a fort erected on the Susquehanna River, and when the crown lawyers consulted with Baltimore’s attorneys, they were informed that all questions of encroachment would be avoided if the line were to be run just north of this fort, so as to leave it on the Maryland side.105 Penn made no objection to this, but when the charter was drawn up no allusion was made to the Susquehanna fort. ”

“ Thou must needs turn every question of policy into an affair of pious sentiment. Baltimore is as good a Catholic as thou; but he is first of all an Englishman, and second, the ruler of this province, wherein he hath promised fair play to men of all creeds ”

“ When Lord Baltimore, the founder of Maryland, visited his province in 1681, he brought over an Irish girl, Nellie, who had agreed to redeem the cost of passage to America by doing service. Before her time ended, Lord Baltimore returned to England. Prior to his departure he sold the unexpired term of Nellie's service to a resident of Maryland, who some weeks thereafter gave Nellie to one of his negroes, making her thereby, together with two children that were born, forever his slave. When Lord Baltimore heard of this, he caused the abolishment of the law of 1663. ”

“ For many years her conscience had been neither dead nor asleep on the subject of slavery. Families had impoverished themselves to free their slaves. In 1860 there were 83,942 free colored people in Maryland and 87,189 slaves, the white population being 515,918. Thus there were nearly as many free as slaves of the colored race. Emancipation, in spite of harsh laws passed to discountenance it, had rapidly gone on. In the northern part of the State and in the city of Baltimore there were but few slaveholders, and the slavery was hardly more than nominal. ”

“ The railroads bring to Baltimore vast quantities of iron, coal, and grain from the West, and up from the South ships and trains come laden with raw sugar, tobacco, fruits, and vegetables. Here the oysters, fish, and crabs from Chesapeake Bay and the products of the rich farm lands of Maryland and Virginia find a ready market. ”

“ Germain, may be wanting, but the stamen and spirit of high and cultivated intercourse, such as may well please the most fastidious, is seen in all the society in which the stranger would mingle during the session.
VIEW OF BALTIMORE.
The hospitable and wealthy metropolis of Maryland owes its location to the principle, that “second thoughts are best.” The two brothers of Lord Baltimore, one of whom, Leonard Calvert, had been appointed governor of the province, landed with his two hundred colonists on the north side of the Potomac, and there founded the town of St. ”

“ Many avowed that they would never ride on a railroad built by such a man; others hoped it would break him; some took open ground against his work, and wrote letters to Annapolis to prejudice him with the Legislature, where the Baltimore interest was already crying loudly that an Eastern Shore railroad meant to take Maryland trade and money to Philadelphia. Meshach fiercely responded that, unless the railway took the line of the Maryland counties, Delaware state would build it and carry it off to Newcastle instead of to Elkton, where Meshach meant to unite with a projected Baltimore system. ”

“ The first settlers.—In October, 1633, Baltimore sent two small vessels, the Ark and the Dove, to Maryland. On board there were about twenty gentlemen, most of whom were Catholics, and probably two hundred laborers, the majority of whom were Protestants. Among the influential members were the governor, Leonard Calvert, the brother of Lord Baltimore, and the two councilors who were to assist him in the government. Three Jesuit priests accompanied the expedition, which arrived at the mouth of the Potomac in March, 1634. The site for a settlement was selected nine miles up St. ”

“ A civil war and persecution have already commenced. “Suspected Abolitionists” are ill-treated in the South, and “Suspected Secessionists” are mobbed and beaten in the North. The news of the attack on 6th Massachusetts, and the Pennsylvania regiment, by the mob in Baltimore, has been received with great delight; but some long-headed people see that it will only expose Baltimore and Maryland to the full force of the [184] Northern States. ”