for development. Fortunately they were captured in this incipient
state in a 1752 drawing by John Moale the younger (an artist as
well as an uptown landowner). Drawn from the hilltop in Gist's
Inspection (later called Federal Hill) overlooking the Northwest
Branch to the north, he depicted a town wherein Calvert is the
main street leading down to a wharf at the waterfront. It shows
twenty-five houses, one church and two taverns. The town had
perhaps two hundred inhabitants.65

Were it to grow and prosper during the second half of the
eighteenth century, Baltimore had to overcome various obstacles.
Confused and conflicted land titles were discouraging capital
investment. A horseshoe bend in the Jones Falls limited expansion
to the north. The competitive Fell family was intent on creating
a new deep water port outside the Town's limits to the east,
thereby outstripping Baltimore Town itself, where shallows
blocked access to the shoreline.

XV. Removing Clouds on Title

East of the Jones Falls, Thomas Sligh was instrumental in
clearing title to the town. He and his partner Thomas Sheredine
had already bought out the rights of both mortgagor (1749) and
mortgagee (1750) in the parcel which James Todd originally trans-
ferred to John Hurst in 1701. After Sheredine died in 1752
Sligh's next step was to acquire Sheredine's share from his
partner's son and heir in 1756. Two years later Sligh obtained a

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