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MARYLAND HISTORICAL MAGAZINE

Mountney's    /
Neck

Fell's
Prospect

Northwest branch

= disputed area

Map 13. East Baltimore, 1785.

between them. A half-century later they would still be litigating entitlement to the
landfill (Map 13).117

The arrival of Capt. John O'Donnell from China in 1785 indirectly worked to
fix the Town's eastern boundary. He brought with him the first cargo of silks, tea,
and spices ever imported to the port of Baltimore. It made his fortune, and he
used part of it to buy twenty-five hundred acres of land. Essentially he bought all
the Patapsco waterfront between Fell's Prospect and the Chesapeake Bay. O'Don-
nell called his huge estate Canton, after the Chinese port from whence he came118
(see Map 13).

On the Waterfront. The commercial zone of expansion was on the waterfront.
Cole's Harbour was not deep. If the shipping merchants were to do business they
had a choice either of dredging a channel in or building a wharf out. Otherwise,
all of the merchantmen would dock at Fells Point. ^

Consideration was given to deepening the basin. The assembly pondered con-
struction of two enormous ox-driven dredges on the Dutch plan which could cut a
channel. But, all things considered, wharfing out seemed a more practical solution
than such a "mud machine." 2"

The first projects were modest in size. A county wharf had existed at the foot of
Calvert Street since before mid-century.  Thereafter a bulkhead was constructed
along the waterfront, and behind it was dedicated a Water Street which followed
the meander of the shoreline between Calvert and Gay streets.   East of Calvert,
Jonathan Lindson had added a short pier      (see Map 14).

Parceling Out Land

169

County     , n

Wharf     ,     ,

Imasons

Map 14. Baltimore Waterfront, 1780.

In 1771 brewer James Sterett, a newcomer from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, who
owned a waterfront lot at the corner of Water Street and Gay Street, looked to take
advantage of the Act of 1745 on a larger scale. He deposited five hundred scow
loads of sand in the navigable water and marsh which abutted his property while
wharfing out into the basin. Sterett considered his project authorized by the Act
of 1745, but the Maryland Court of Appeals disagreed. The court affirmed recovery
by Thomas Harrison in a nuisance action for damages for the diminution in value
of his adjacent land and ruled that the Act of 1745 did not justify interference with
Harrison's access to navigable water. " A settlement was reached following the
litigation. Harrison agreed to release his claim to damages in return for Sterett's
vacation of the site. Soon thereafter the properties passed into the hands Sterett's
Presbyterian co-religionists, Col. Samuel Smith and William Spear, who by 1780
developed on the site two wharves projecting two hundred feet out into the basin
from Water Street123 (Map 14).

Larger projects were to follow in the 1780s. The Scots-Irish were cornering the
market on the waterfront. At the southeast corner of Water and Commerce streets
Samuel Purviance built a wharf that served his distillery. William Spear extended
his wharf one thousand feet out to a small island, where he erected a bakery. Daniel
Bowley placed his dock at the foot of South Street. And Col. Sam Smith built two
one-thousand-feet-long wharves out into the basin. Gradually fill was placed