172 MARYLAND HISTORICAL MAGAZINE Improvement Sh'a']'Not'Extend' Map 16. Baltimore Waterfront, 1797. In 1795 Dugan and McElderry built sixteen hundred-feet-long wharves out to the very limits of the pier line established by the port wardens. Between them ran a canal that connected to the market center. The design was modeled after the docks of Liverpool with rows of three-story brick warehouses fronting on the enclosed water. The port wardens set the width of the Falls at eighty feet south of the Baltimore Street Bridge and sixty feet to the north133 (Map 16) In 1796 the General Assembly passed a law authorizing the extension of Light Street to the south so as to join it with Forest Street into one, new Light Street Once extended and filled behind, Light Street would be the second leg in the conversion of the harbor basin into a rectangle. Venture capital to accomplish this was not forthcoming until after Baltimore was incorporated as a city 134 The Corporation of Baltimore City. The Maryland General Assembly incorporated Baltimore City in 1796. The mayor and city council became the governing body assummg control over matters of sanitation, and police and fire protection for the Parceling Out Land 173 twenty thousand inhabitants. The port wardens were abolished as the municipal corporation took charge over port development. By 1796 there were about three thousand five hundred dwellings. Yellow fever epidemics in Fell's Point determined that original Baltimore Town would be the preferred residential growth area. Once builders discovered the excellence of local clay, Baltimore became a bricks and mortar town. Wealthy merchants constructed distinctive townhouses along Calvert and Gay streets, and speculative builders built rowhouses all around the basin. Economies of scale and of space saved rowhouse builders up to 25 percent of the construction cost. The ground upon which most of the new middle-class and working class houses were built was leased for ninety-nine years, renewable forever, subject to an annual rent. Thomas Harrison's innovation had taken root.137 John Eager Howard, still the largest landholder in town, owned hundreds of ground rents and continued to develop lands west of town. Governor of the state between 1786 and 1792, he lived in his Belvidere mansion, built between 1786 and 1792 on his Howard Park estate. The estate was located on a hill north of town in the farthest reach of the parcel that had been patented to Edward Lunn in 1673 as Lunn's Lott.138 NOTES 41. Casey's Lessee v. Inloes, 1 Gill 430, 437-39 (Md. 1844); J. Thomas Scharf, History of Baltimore City and County (1881; [repr.] 2 vols; Baltimore: Regional Publishing Co., 1971), 1:54-55. 42. 1732 Md. Acts (July) ch. XIV [W. Kilty, vol. 1], Archives of Maryland, 37:533. First Records of Baltimore Town, and Janus' Town 1729-1797 (Baltimore: 1905), pp. xiii-xv; Scharf, History, 1:54-57; Clay ton Colman Hall, ed., Baltimore: Its History and Its People (3 vols.; Baltimore, 1912), 1:15. 43. Scharf, History, vol. 1, p. 55; Hall, History, 1:15. 44. First Records, pp. 11-17; Scharf, History, 1:55-56; Hall, History, 1:15. 45. Casey's Lessee v. Inloes, 1 Gill 430, 437-39, 451-57 (Md. 1844); Clarence P. Gould, The Land System in Maryland 1720-1765 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1913), pp. 28-31. William Fell, Island Point, 1734: Baltimore County Land Records (Patents) Liber 56 folio 203, Maryland State Archives (hereafter MdSA). 46. Casey's Lessee v. Inloes 1 Gill 430, 453-54, 459-60 (Md. 1844); J. Thomas Scharf, The Chronicles of Baltimore, (1874; [repr.] 2 vols; Bowie, Md.: Heritage Books, Inc., 1989), 1:18; Scharf, History, 1:59-60; Olson, Baltimore: The Building of an. American. City (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press 1980), p. 8. 47. 1745 Md. Acts (August) ch. IX [W. Kilty, vol. 1], Archives of Maryland, 44:214. First Records of Baltimore Town, pp. xvii-xxiii; Scharf, History, 1:54-56; Scharf, Chronicles, 1:32-37; Hall, History, 1:16. 48. The other commissioners were Dr. George Buchanan, Col. William Ham- mond, Capt. Robert North, and Capt. Darby Lux. See First Records, p. 20.